Ep 1 India to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | Vietnam Tour| Indian food in HO chi minh city
While booking international flights I saw that most of the flights were at night. I wanted to take a morning flight. Air India was a good option, departing at 1PM with flying time of 4 hours and Vietnam is 1.5hrs ahead of India. I have taken International roaming on my Airtel Prepaid SIM for 10 days. I spent Rs 899 for this package. We'll reach Ho Chi Minh city by8PM.
After Ho Chin Minh city, we'll go to Da Nang and end our journey in Hanoi. This is our 13 days trip. We got Corn Rice for lunch, it tastes good. It's a 5 hour journey which is long as domestic fly time is 2-2.5 hours. In that way, this is a long journey. I will join you on reaching the airport.
See you after sometime! Our flying time was 4 hours and 50 minutes. Our luggage was unloaded from conveyor belt already. Interesting! We have taken a cab from Airport to District 1.
I had pre-booked my cab from the agency. I paid $20 for 8KM distance. It will take half an hour to reach.
I've booked Lantern Hotel in District 1. I noticed, it's a left-hand drive here. In India, it's a right hand drive. The second thing that I am noticing here is.. the traffic in my opposite direction is moving on my left.
Generally, we are on the left. Our cab driver doesn't know English at all. One can take the cab and pay upon arrival. Finally, this is our room.
While booking I thought there'd be a window in the room. It's here I think. Window is a must for me. I don't like closed rooms. Anyways, let's get fresh then meet our guide in the lobby. I booked the hotel through Booking.com
Tomorrow, our purpose is not video shoot. It's an inspection to understand the city. So, do we keep palace and museum palace for next day? War museum we'll go next day and palace? Next day, something else? Accent makes a difference as it's difficult to understand what the guide is saying despite hearing attentively. I'm missing out on understanding some things. Till I plan with the guide you can explore our website Spice2Nuts.
We are making spices available from place of origin. These are available in 50gm to 100gm. Let me take you back to our conversation. After that we'll go and have our dinner. So, we catch-up tomorrow at 8AM. We'll have breakfast then set out for the day.
So, are you pure vegetarian? You can have vegetarian Gujrati food. But, we'd like to taste local food. There are some Indian food options there.
How far is the Gujrati food restaurant from here? It's a 2 minutes walk just across the road. Nice to meet you. I'll see you tomorrow morning at 8AM.
After a 5-minute walk we're at Gujarat Indian Restaurant. In Bali, we'd have local breakfast, lunch and Indian food for dinner. I have ordered Sev Tomato dish and Garlic Batata. I'm feeling very sleepy now. I want to eat, take a quick walk and sleep soon.
The food tastes really good! Cool! I really liked Garlic Batata. You may not have seen this T-short I'm wearing today. On Kadakmerch.com my merchandise is listed. These are some designs available there. I forget to wear it while making videos.
Apart from T-shirts and hoodies are mugs. These mugs personally designed by me. It has designs of Konkan district, maps of Sikkim. You can check that out as well. This is their Walking Street. See, how crowded it is! There's loud music and full lighting outside cafes.
Looking at the scenes here, I was thinking if I'd book a hotel on this street or nearby, how would I sleep at night. It seems people party all night and sleep in the day. This place is full of action. People enjoy in their own way here on the streets. People are drinking, others having a good time.
It depends on one's interest and preference. As I was here, I thought of taking a walk down the street. At 11PM, I'm back at Lantern Hotel. I'll meet you tomorrow and see what we can do in the day. We've started our day and here is Miss. Eden. Hello Everybody! You belong to this place? Yes, that's right.
Yesterday, we met at the hotel and planned for today tomorrow and day after that. In this BTS episode, we'll explore the city together. Tomorrow and Day after we'll make a video of Ho Chi Minh city.
Where are we are going for breakfast? We'll go to a vegetarian restaurant. That place has a mix of cultures. The way in India you have Pani Puri.. It's called Araham Chay.
How do you pronounce "Ch"? So, what can we have for breakfast? We can have noodles soup. It's Hoanh Thanh Mi Nuoc. It has Mushrooms, Tofu, and soup. So, we can have this.
I ate already, I'll order for you. You can take a small portion. You can try Pani Puri from your country. This is Pani Puri. What's the filling when you have it in India? It has water and some spices in it.
Here, stir-fried mushroom is added in it. One Dim sum and one of this. How many people are pure vegetarian here? In Ho Chi Minh City around 15% vegetarians.
What did you order for yourself? My breakfast is done already. This is Chilli and Soy Sauce. This is the Noodles Soup I ordered. It has noodles, dumplings and filling of mushrooms in the dumplings. The taste is good! Nice! So, this breakfast is popular here. Yes, it's popular.
What time do you have breakfast at home? I have breakfast at 7:30AM. Yesterday you told people have dinner early here. Yes, early dinner by 5PM-5:30PM. Early dinner as they don't like to eat at night.
This is a nice dish! Best part is it is hardly spicy. You'll get the taste of vegeables. You can hardly taste the salt in it too. It's very tasty! Taste of mushroom is quite different. It seems to have dried mushrooms not fresh ones. Overall, it's good.
If "Chay" is written it means Vegetarian. Leave alone spices, there's hardly any salt in their food. For USD $100 I got 25, 70,000 VND. I exchanged US$ 200.
I'm shocked on seeing the crowd for exchange. This is their currency notes of 20,000 VND. Here are 1 Lakh and 2 Lakh notes of VND. This hop on-hop off bus plies every 20 minutes. It operates from 6AM-9PM starting from Post Office.
I'll take a ride in it tomorrow evening after its dark. After a 2 hour drive we're at Cu Chi Tunnel. I'll be here tomorrow again. But, I came here today just like that.
Let's go in. How much is the entry ticket? It is 1,25,000 VND. How long does it take to see the complete tunnel? It takes 1 hour and 30 minutes. I had taken State Bank Forex Card.
This is easy, I also used it in Bali. ou can go down to the bunker here. It has a 10-minute documentary movie. It will start right now. Cu Chi Tunnel is main tourist attraction of Ho Chi Minh I'll show it to you properly tomorrow. This was just a quick tour to get familiar with the place.
After 1 hour we're back outside. This is open all 7 days. It's open 7AM-5PM, with last ticket sold at 4:30PM.
So, 7AM-4:30PM. I have come near Saigon River. I'm in front of Renaissance Hotel. They have a rooftop restaurant, Benaras. You'll get an amazing view of place especially at night. The lighting, tall buildings and road view is good.
We'll take a water bus on Saigon River. It's a 15 minutes journey across the river. The River cruise starts at 10AM and is till 10PM. The ticket is for 15,000 VND per person. We'll go in from here. Water is shinning with that neon light board.
Bridge and the buildings behind it are beautiful. Boat ride has started. Those tall glass buildings are looking so beautiful. I saw this bridge sometime back. This is a 15-minutes water bus journey. You can take a River cruise dinner from there.
I'll try to go there tomorrow or day after. This is a short, but enjoyable journey. Saigon River flows through the city. We have come to this side of the river. From this side, you can see the view of the rivers and tall buildings. Some are commercial and others residential buildings.
The tallest building is Landmark 81. We'll visit this building tomorrow. Amazing! People come this side, have coffee, snacks and spend time enjoying the calmness of the river. You can either go back by water bus or, call your private car here. Our car will be here in 5-10 minutes. You can take an electric bus for 5,000 VND.
This was a nice experience. The charm increased due to an evening ride in water bus. It's sunny in the afternoon.
I'm using the name Saigon as cafes are also named so. Ho Chin Minh's old name is 'Saigon'. People still address this city as Saigon at times.
It's dark now as it is 7PM. I wanted to have good coffee so Eden brought me to Ambrosia Cafe Bistro. This is in District 1. Our hotel is in District 1 as well.
We are 3KM away from our hotel. But due to traffic, it'll take us 25-30 minutes. Coffee is very good here.
In any restaurant you'll notice.. if it mentions 75 it means 75,000 VND. '000' is not written in restaurant menus. 1,00,000 VND is Rs 335- Rs 340.
You can calculate it that way. Have a look at this water bottle. You have to buy water here. In hotel they give 1 bottle, rest has to be purchased.
When we hire cabs, they mention giving water in the inclusions. They'll give 1 bottle per day. This was my observation about water I shared. Eden has gone out for 5 minutes.
She will join us in 5-7 minutes. I'll see her off and end this episode. Eden, we had a good time with you.
We'll drop you to your place and go to our hotel. Tomorrow, Mr. T. will be coming. We will travel with him.
He will give you all the information you need. We had a good time with you today. If you are happy, I'm happy too. Thank you so much! See you next time. We are ending this episode here.
Our next episode will be the first episode of Visa2explore. Bye Bye! Thanks for your time.
2025-05-12 20:42
