Bill Baileys Vietnam - Season 1 Episode 02- Ho Chi Minh
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00:00Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
00:10A city that's been on fast forward for the last 50 years since the end of the war.
00:15So what better time to pause and reflect on this fascinating city.
00:24Vietnam. Of course it's a place of tea plantation.
00:29Traffic. Temples. But then it's something else entirely.
00:38Come with me on an unusual.
00:40Oh no, no, no.
00:41Unfiltered.
00:42I'm soaked. Look at me trousers.
00:45Unforgettable adventure.
00:48Give me five.
00:49My mind's off on a whole bunch of other tangents.
00:53I'm thinking about a sandwich I had in 1982.
00:56As this nation commemorates 50 years since the end of the war.
00:59So as soon as it's safe, right?
01:01I'll explore this fertile land.
01:03Ask the big questions.
01:05Am I in the right place?
01:06Embrace new experiences.
01:08Even my own future.
01:09I'm proud of them.
01:11You are a smart contestant.
01:13Is there any, you know, good news?
01:16Navigate tight spaces.
01:18I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get out.
01:20Make some new friends.
01:21Separated at birth.
01:24This is a voyage of discovery.
01:26Of strange encounters.
01:27This is your whole life in a plant.
01:29And kindred spirits.
01:31An enchanted stroll to one of the most fascinating places on earth.
01:36Welcome to Bill Bailey's Vietnam Adventure.
01:39This is Ho Chi Minh City.
01:55A huge, dynamic, clamorous assault on the senses.
02:00But what strikes me most is the traffic.
02:03It's relentless.
02:04Simply crossing the road is an adventure in itself.
02:08On the southeastern curve of this S-shaped nation
02:12sits the former capital of South Vietnam on the Saigon River.
02:17Right, that's the geography sorted for you.
02:21Now, back to the street crossing.
02:24I'm told confidence is key.
02:26All right, here we go.
02:30Oh, .
02:31It's bloody green, you .
02:41Is this worth it for a selfie?
02:44Let's get the .
02:45I mean, it's not worth getting mowed down for,
02:50but it's quite a good shot.
02:56I've arranged a personal guide of this thrumming metropolis,
03:01still affectionately known as Saigon.
03:04No safe bus tour for me.
03:06I want to get amongst it, be at one with the people.
03:15Hi, Mr Bell.
03:16There's my guide.
03:17I'm here.
03:18KK.
03:19Across another road.
03:20Yes.
03:21All right, KK, I'm here.
03:23All right.
03:24Watch out.
03:25Just take this nice and easy.
03:28You can do it.
03:31I'm leaving you.
03:32Come on.
03:33Okay.
03:34Yay.
03:35There we go.
03:36High five.
03:37Hi, KK.
03:38How are you doing all right?
03:39You survived.
03:40I survived, yeah, exactly.
03:41I don't know how.
03:42Hello, nice to meet you.
03:43Lovely to meet you.
03:44Yeah.
03:45How do you do that?
03:46Well, I don't know, actually.
03:47It's not something I do normally.
03:49Oh, my God.
03:50Walk out into traffic.
03:51But, hey, you know, I'm here to try new experiences.
03:54And in this context, safety first.
03:57But let's not let safety get in the way of looking stylish.
04:00All right.
04:01I like the fact that I'm colour-coded with the bike.
04:03Yeah.
04:04Oh, my gosh.
04:05Outfit match.
04:06I know.
04:07Like a pose.
04:08Got to get on here like that.
04:09Yes, exactly.
04:10Okay.
04:11I'm just stretching out my hips a little bit.
04:12Yeah, all right.
04:13I've got a little bit of cramp in me.
04:14All right.
04:15My leg won't go.
04:16Yeah.
04:17Yeah, just stretch it up.
04:19Yeah, that's right.
04:20And I can put my feet on this footrest here.
04:22Yes, right.
04:23Perfect.
04:24All right.
04:25Okay.
04:26All right.
04:27All right.
04:28Have some workout today.
04:29It is a workout.
04:30All right.
04:31All right, you ready?
04:32Okay, let's do it.
04:33Okay, here we go.
04:34All right.
04:35Don't be scared.
04:36Yeah.
04:37What could I possibly be scared of?
04:40Actually, this is exhilarating.
04:42Just me, KK, and nothing but Saigon smog between us and the bitumen.
04:47I'm trusting KK with my life.
04:49Watch out for the scooters.
04:51Uh-oh.
04:52There we go.
04:53Look out.
04:54Yeah.
04:55No worries.
04:56Just a little bit of...
04:57It seems like a whole wall of bikes were coming towards us then.
05:01Yeah, that's the beauty of life, my friend.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Uh, the time that you were about near your death.
05:07You never know that.
05:08Oh.
05:09Okay.
05:10I mean, it's a very good point, but not that reassuring.
05:15Uh, KK, I was going to ask you, how many people are in Ho Chi Minh City?
05:19We have approximately about 12 million.
05:2112 million?
05:2212 million people, yes.
05:23Wow.
05:24And of those 12 million, how many scooters are there here?
05:27I mean, there must be a million.
05:29Yeah, we have actually around more than nine million scooters.
05:34Nine million?
05:35Yes.
05:36That's extraordinary.
05:37With the millions of scooters comes smog.
05:41But the good news is, Vietnam is aiming to phase out scooters by 2050 to achieve net-zero emissions.
05:48Until then, riding a scooter is thirsty work.
05:51By the time you've dodged a billion buses and crossed a five-lane highway, sustenance is essential.
05:58So, are we going to have a quick juice or something?
06:00Yes.
06:01Oh, my God, they have some lovely seats for you as well.
06:03Oh, a tiny stool.
06:05Yes, exactly.
06:06So, we will sit right here.
06:07This is how it sits for you.
06:09I hope it's not too tiny for you.
06:11Is this?
06:12Yes.
06:13Is it how it is?
06:14Just like that, please.
06:15All right.
06:16Have a try.
06:17How do you try?
06:18I'll try it.
06:19Yep.
06:20Ah!
06:21You did it!
06:22Great.
06:23And our friends here as well.
06:24Hello, everyone.
06:25Yeah.
06:26Hi, guys.
06:27This city is set on contorting my body into awkward positions.
06:33But this is good practice, actually, for being on the bike, sitting on a tiny stool.
06:40I feel like a giant.
06:42I feel like these stools are for a different size of person.
06:48So, we have some other drinks for you.
06:49What's that?
06:50Oh, so this one is called the peach tea.
06:51Peach tea?
06:52Yeah.
06:53Right.
06:54Please, have a try.
06:55Okay.
06:56Cheers.
06:57All right.
06:58How was it?
06:59Oh, that's good.
07:00That is really good.
07:01And what is this?
07:02Oh.
07:03So, this is what we call a rice cake pudding, you can say.
07:04Okay.
07:05Mushrooms and minced pork as well.
07:06Right.
07:07So, this is like a dumpling or something.
07:08Yes, it's similar.
07:09In Vietnamese name, we call it banh dò.
07:10Banh dò.
07:11Banh dò.
07:12Yes.
07:13So, anything that is made with flour, as long as it has flour, it's called banh.
07:15So, yes, you have it.
07:16Banh dò.
07:17That's exactly.
07:18And for this baby himself, it's the breakfast.
07:42This is the breakfast.
07:43This is delicious.
07:44From 1 to 10, how much would you rate this one?
07:46i want to teach you how to say cheers in vietnam all right go then how do you say
07:50so how is it we counted from one to three in vietnam we count
07:55mot is number one m-o-t mot mot yes exactly and number two is hi yeah you say hi to your friend
08:03hi hi yeah it's number two hi hi yeah and then number three which means bar like you go to the
08:09bar oh back back yeah counting what hi yes all right let's cheers okay here we go
08:18mo hi hi thank you
08:40just as the cacophony of traffic threatens to swallow you whole
08:45the saigon river appears wide and calm gliding through the center of the city like it knows a
08:51quieter way to get things done stretching over 250 kilometers from cambodia to the sea
08:57it's been a vital economic trade route for centuries and still is
09:02if i ask you how do you describe vietnamese fabric into work how you call it organized chaos exactly
09:15how chi minh city traffic is like a symphony with no conductor and then standing calmly amid
09:23the chaos is the father of modern vietnam the man who led the country through war independence and into
09:30history and whose profound impact brought about the renaming of saigon mr ho chi minh for vietnamese
09:37people who live abroad uncle ho may be a deeply polarizing figure but for locals he was the leader
09:43of north vietnam who fought for autonomy from french colonial rule sad thing about his death is that he
09:50was fighting for so long to have the independence day independence day is 30 april 1975. yes he never
09:58survived he never lived to see it exactly he unfortunately passed away before that when the war ended in 1975
10:05and the north claimed victory saigon once the capital of the south was renamed ho chi minh city the
10:13people love him so much they named him the title the bringer of light there's not really an equivalent
10:20figure in british society the only person i can think of who is anything like as revered in terms of
10:26carrying the hopes of a nation is winston churchill we could pay tribute like this okay and you pray like
10:33pray mr ho chi minh thank you for bringing the hope and the light for our people i hope we have the
10:39blessing to bless us with a splendid journey today
10:46a handsome man in his early days before the balding although bald heads are held in high regard here
10:52the ball the thought of as wise which of course i can't argue with he's actually quite a good looking
10:59fellow yes quite striking yes exactly but because he's been thinking too much so his hair like kind
11:06of similar oh yes same with me i'm thinking so much all my hair well seems like you carry heavy
11:12responsibility like yeah must have done do you know what it's actually a very good statue as well
11:19it's actually really well done yes you know because some statues are sort of i don't know they
11:23they they don't maybe the look likeness isn't great or the actual proportions but this is very
11:29well done would you like to have a statue in the future i mean who knows you know wouldn't that be
11:34great have a statue of yourself oh my god i don't think i'll get a city named after myself oh my god no
11:38i don't think so maybe a roundabout
11:43that's my first big lesson of being here of learning about what is important to vietnamese people and it's so
11:51much of it is tied up with him and such a sort of reverence it's interesting that kk was saying
12:00don't try and imitate his pose and i guess that's what we do as tourists you know but actually
12:08it's disrespectful and i can see that you know he's he is after all the bringer of light
12:15oh i wasn't ready for that i had by the back of your helmet yeah they like using the horn don't they
12:35thank you so much kk it's been fantastic thank you for all your uh information and all your uh
12:49guides and guidance and it's been brilliant never mind all that get out of the road you idiot
12:54survive all right it's amazing i survived this challenge at all
13:07this is not a series about the vietnam war which has been dealt with exhaustively elsewhere
13:14but it is 50 years since the end of the war and to help me understand what makes vietnam so extraordinary
13:21i can't ignore the very thing that has defined this country for decades and with that in mind i've
13:27come to this place the coochie tunnels a tourist site now which celebrates the ingenuity of the
13:33vietnamese in a conflict that was broadcast graphically into the world this country is no stranger to
13:41attempts on its freedom after a thousand years of chinese imperial rule french colonization and of
13:48course the vietnam war it's no wonder the people value independence so much i'm here to find out a
13:54little of what it was like to have been a soldier in the vietcong in this brutal battle between north
13:58and south vietnam that was backed by the us as i prepare to head down into the tunnels an experience
14:05which is not as it turns out for the faint-hearted i'm just looking at these rules you should not go down
14:13the tunnel in the following cases visitors who are afraid of darkness and narrow places visitors of old
14:18age 70 come on that's not that old visitors who are drunk well yeah fair enough
14:28old drunk people with asthma don't bother don't even bother coming down here who comes here drunk
14:35i know well i'm going to answer that question british tourists i can just imagine it come on lads
14:44let's get out of the tunnel there yeah oh i know i mean they're pretty well turned out matching
14:53scarves and capes imagine it was pretty grim down these tunnels i like a cape i do like a cape
14:59it's all pretty practical stuff sandals webbing belt water bottle torch
15:11i mean that's what you need for tunnel life quite attractive in a strange kind of way
15:21the kuchi tunnels are a complex underground network designed to conceal the vietcong from the enemy
15:31and local expert tin is going to help me navigate these tiny spaces now these tunnels
15:37originally would have been much smaller wouldn't it today for visiting yeah some part of the tunnel has
15:43been widened for two years right yeah it's about 80 centimeter high by 60 centimeter wide god that's tiny
15:50really really yeah because uh mostly vietnamese people so skinny you know much smaller yeah smaller
15:55yes yeah do you think i'm too big for this um but it's big enough for for you all right it's
16:00comfortable for your time all right i'll take your word for it be careful your step yeah
16:11i'm hoping to avoid a subterranean freak out trying to comprehend how soldiers survived this dank
16:18claustrophobic space which was remarkably all dug by hand wow this was the well down here the wells
16:26ah right yeah 15 meters 15 meters by human power there's no technology it must have been tough living
16:34down here must have been like dark and yes damp and were there like sort of snakes and rats down here
16:42and all sorts of animals yes yeah during the rainy season there are a lot of animals in the tunnels
16:47insects you know centipede you know yeah yeah and what about um how long did they would they spend down
16:54here uh minimum for a week and maximum for a month without going out and if they were underground they
17:03were at risk from being bombed or shot or seen by the american forces yeah us i mean near the tunnels but they
17:12didn't know exactly where tunnel system yeah from aircraft helicopter the bombing so if usmi dropped
17:18the heavy bomb local people moved down to second and third level because our tunnel system included
17:23three levels we are on the first level first level not so deep yeah it's gone deep usma there's another
17:29two levels below this yeah six meter and ten meter yeah it's extraordinary this tunnel system which
17:38stretches out for hundreds of miles and lots of directions was crucial in this war of attrition
17:45this guerrilla warfare it was kind of instrumental in their eventual victory
17:51this bat is this bat is that's amazing there we go whoa to the bat cave
18:09okay all right somewhere here yeah not being able to find the entrance to the tunnels was a big part of
18:15how effective they were oh my god is that the entrance this is a secret entrance to the tunnels
18:22the actual side of the entrance is really small yeah 30 by 40 centimeters i think you don't believe
18:28how local people can fit down here let i uh demonstration for you to see how local people get in the tunnels
18:34yeah you have to do like this the camel flash the entrance put some leaf on the cap yeah and make sure
18:40everything from around you like a natural right yeah hold it up yeah put the cap over your head yeah
18:50spray your arm like this and lower your body gone disappeared amazing it's like a vanishing trick
19:03that's amazing excuse me i'm here oh what hello i'm here how'd you get there so fast that's incredible
19:20i'm too big to fit down here do you think uh if you want to go may i show you the bigger size
19:24yes thanks i'd like do you have this in a large oh yeah oh there we go that's more like it bigger so
19:32okay sit down yeah sit down put your left first okay here we go
19:40right okay okay wow okay yeah your hand below the cap
19:51hello here yeah below the cap and now yeah straight your arm yeah straight straight your arm
19:57hold on like this yeah yeah i'm straight straight yeah yeah yeah okay lower your body yeah
20:06all right yes
20:15how was it wow okay hand up first yeah put your hand up first yes
20:20gosh gosh i mean even this is a tight squeeze it's all right i'm not only just about fit in here
20:27but this is the wider one yes wow
20:32okay i hear you you're saying oh look he's like a tunnel badger who needs to lay off about me
20:40but in all seriousness the human cost of the war here was overwhelming
20:45with around three million vietnamese dying during what the locals called the american war
20:51i mean the americans threw everything at them i mean they carpet bombed the place from with b52s they
20:57dropped napalm they dropped phosphorus they dropped millions of liters of asian orange this defoliant which
21:06to sort of stripped the landscape of any kind of vegetation and yet they still prevail and
21:15but a terrible cost you know that the lands was was poisoned by this dioxin there's fragments of bombs
21:23everywhere it's still the legacy of this war is still very much around
21:39above ground is very much my preference in general and ho chi min city has much to offer in that regard
21:50on my travels around the world i find it hard to pass any creature feathered or furred without
22:00saying hello hello hello don't be like that hey come and say hello yes oh i've always believed if
22:12you really want to understand a place talk to the animals or at least give them a little pet
22:20oh that's nice
22:21hello mate hello hello but wait there's more
22:34oh my word that is a pampered looking pooch this dog's getting a fantastic trim here
22:43hey dog look at it how can i resist that doggy in the window
22:47oh i'm drawn to this salon like an englishman to the midday sun
22:59i have many pets i'm practically dr dolittle and this menagerie of fluff is making me feel right at
23:06home oh i love you too it's like the sort of thing that you know sort of very fancy parisian women might
23:12have
23:21wow this is great
23:25i do miss my dogs when i'm away oh so any chance i get for a bit of a cuddle i'm not going to pass up
23:32they don't want to they don't want me to put them down i've got this sense that they want to
23:36come with me is that right
23:41you know i'm a soft top that's what it is
23:47look into my eyes
23:55what you're trying to tell me something with your mind
23:58what you want to come back to london with me is that what you're saying
24:03you're mesmerizing me with your cuteness
24:05i'm totally i don't know who's hypnotizing who here
24:17bye
24:23it's like look at you pampered idiots
24:25oh you're getting your ears trimmed are you yeah yeah look at you vain
24:33you're not proper dogs look at me i've got one ear going up one ear going down
24:45there we are as the city settles into early evening i've spotted a group of locals playing this
24:52rather hypnotic game with their feet and i'm thinking this could be the perfect opportunity
24:57to make a fool of myself in public it's called dachau and it's the national street sport of vietnam
25:04and you can play it anywhere all you need is a weighted shuttlecock
25:08and hope that your legs will do what your brain tells it to
25:11lum yuang is my coach
25:13the first is the chicken wing you hit outside of your foot that way you brought to my right i show you
25:19to there chicken wing oh okay i'll show you where you hit outside of your foot like that
25:28yeah take it up
25:32no turning no turning wow i feel like i'm a kung fu fighter learning to juggle with my feet
25:41which of course feels completely natural easy huh when you score you have to pack it over the net
25:47to the other side yeah and the feather is done when you hit the rock right right and you need the
25:5215 boy for winning right 15 and you can take the i say similar scoring to badminton so 15 is a set
26:03i love that the game dates back to the second century bc in china when it was a way to keep
26:08soldiers healthy and entertained i like it it's good fun it's a bit like hacky sack only with a shuttlecock
26:14a simpler way of playing badminton without a racket which i like i like the idea of it you know the
26:21idea of simplifying what can be seen as quite an elitist sport into something that you can just do in
26:28the park i can see a future for this polo without the ponies or the sticks or the ball
26:35i should have brought me crocs that would have been better
26:51it's morning in ho chi minh city and like most big cities and me we need a kick start with the
26:56help of a familiar friend cafe vot uses an old-style cloth filtered coffee technique first used in the
27:06early 20th century and here in the city there's only a few practitioners left hello hello hi how you
27:13doing can i get a olive a black coffee black coffee yes please yeah qua is the grandson of two yet who
27:21started making coffee here when she was just six years old my grandmother has opened this like coffee
27:27for 70 years her whole life wow yeah you seem to be doing a good trade do you know yeah people are just
27:36coming past all the time these are like uh usual customers right for me every day making coffee is like
27:43a ritual oh you know i i love good coffee i'm going to give it a go and learn from a master all right
27:52so i get some of this in here all right now so i need to get this spoon out and then i have to get in
27:58here oh how do you yeah oh i see in there right okay in here like that yeah yeah right okay so that goes
28:09back over there yeah right then you you can hold it all right okay so hold it over here you have to
28:18hold it in an angle like that there we go look at that there we go that's it there we go
28:30i spilt it a little bit i'm not getting the job as a barista here anytime soon
28:35one coffee anyone want a coffee anyone coffee fresh coffee come on get your coffee
28:44how much is it this is 22 for 22 000 uh oh 25 all right hold on a second so we're getting three
28:55one two three yeah right there you go okay
28:59okay i can get used to this why the comedy doesn't work out i'll sell coffee
29:14i had no idea that vietnam is one of the biggest coffee exporters in the world
29:18open 24 7 this place sees a day in the life of sygonese caffeinating the early workers right
29:25through to the party goers at 2am nice to meet you thank you so much i guess in a an age where
29:31you know young people want everything like right then and there you know you want to go to starbucks
29:37or something and get your latte it's really heartening to hear that actually they're rediscovering
29:44this traditional this authentic way of making coffee i thought that was lovely
30:03the bustling streets offer up many unexpected moments of human connection
30:07the street vendors mostly women are mobile merchants of charm and persistence and masters
30:21at selling you things you never knew you needed that's nice okay all right then i'll get these
30:26these ones and a fan can i get a fan i've only got a hundred thousand dong how much do the fan and the
30:33magnets one night i've got a hundred i've only got a hundred hundred three oh right okay i need more
30:40dong can i get a fan all right there you go yeah okay thank you thank you thank you so much good luck
30:53oh look at that oh yes
30:54why why mr darcy all right i have a hard time appearing coquettish these days
31:08as the sun dips the city shifts up a gear food stalls flicker into action markets serve up their
31:15sometimes dubious delights i'm not eating one of them oh my god the streets thrum with life it's not
31:22just noise it's the soundtrack of a city clocking off and coming alive this evening i'm searching
31:29for a spot to quench my thirst on route i've become distracted by the nightly ballet of commuters
31:38just what i think what what do they all do where are they all going all these little individual
31:43stories of like lives you know there's all manner of things that have been carried you know it's
31:50it's an entire sort of culture of itself everyone's got some purpose they're driving somewhere
31:57they're taking the family they've got the business on the back you know it's an inexpensive way of
32:03getting around quicker to get around through the traffic you know kind of mind-boggling really
32:10i'm going to have another crack at this crossing the road caper
32:19it might leave you asking why did the bill cross the road or more importantly
32:24why did he try to cross it again
32:29i'm convinced after a few days here i've nailed it literally everything my parents have told me not to do
32:36blunder out in the traffic
32:43i reckon i've earned myself a drink at the local institution
32:46the caravel hotel once a popular wartime correspondence bar
32:51and they do a very good passion fruit sour and now a place to share an intimate moment with novak
33:03that's sort of disconcerting isn't it looking right up his trouser leg
33:08on my travels i've become fond of a bit of a sketch
33:22some people take photos i enjoy drawing the sights in this case vietnam's national flower
33:28you know it's become a symbol of resilience the fact that the lotus blooms from mud something beautiful
33:39can grow in a way it's symbolic of vietnam in many ways this idea of independence of freedom
33:47growing out of something that was a time of great hardship and you see it around the lotus is a kind of
33:54common thread amongst a lot of the visual imagery in the city there's a big fountain here with the
34:00lotus in the middle but you often see it in you know cafes and the insignia and designs of lots
34:06of places i kind of think it's appropriate image of this country and this city particularly
34:11it's quite difficult to draw that because loads of bikes in the way
34:24uncle ho he's sort of giving his veneration behind the lotus in front of city hall with the flag
34:32gently fluttering above there's the three words which are sort of almost like
34:37bound up with ho chi minh's kind of philosophy and that that was you know independence
34:44freedom happiness and on these official documents there's a hyphen between each one
34:52independence freedom happiness and apparently some vietnamese mischievously interpret that as
34:59a subtraction mark so what that document could be interpreted as is independence minus freedom
35:10minus happiness it's a little bit rascally but i can see why
35:16i love slowing things down in the middle of a fast-paced city and staying on trend i'm going to post
35:29this picture into the future in old school snail mail style at the saigon central post office a famous
35:36landmark here i shall send this symbol of vietnam to my final destination harlong bay like a time capsule
35:43to test the postal system and to see if it still resonates when it gets there all right that's
35:48it he's there so got the stamp now i just can't post it
35:59that's it it said it's in the post i got my receipt next time i see it will be in harlong bay
36:04i'm getting the feeling that ho chi minh city is a place where the only thing you can expect
36:14is the unexpected and for a lover of the spontaneous that suits me fine this is a place that looks like
36:22a modern thriving city that just wants to get on there's a sense of energy determinism dynamism about
36:29the place look out there's a triceratops coming
36:36sometimes for me staying focused on the job at hand can be hard oh look now you can get little
36:42you can get little um scooters how much for one of these
36:49oh despite having a schedule to keep to the director is indulging me
36:54okay we have four minutes to get over there and the other ferry it's all right it's sorted
37:00all right
37:13it's a lot faster than i thought oh
37:16oh sorry oh hang on i'm in the wrong gear
37:34right we have to go
37:39okay let's go
37:39oh i'm getting the wind up from the crew so i've got to get moving brilliant thank you
37:50yeah we've got to get the boat i was having too much fun on the crazy go-kart
37:57best 50 000 don i've ever spent
37:59gliding across the calm of the saigon river offers a moment to reflect on the rhythm of this city
38:11that's constantly reinventing itself i'm heading to meet a local band to experience my first foray
38:17into vietnamese music what will be the sound of this city
38:21i'm heading off for my first experience of contemporary vietnamese music it's exciting
38:31i've got no idea what to expect it wasn't long ago here playing western music would get you arrested
38:38but times have changed and now i'm about to meet a group who are rewriting the rules i've heard about
38:44this local band that blend traditional vietnamese folk music with modern rock so i thought i'd come
38:55and check them out
39:00nam top are an eight-member band and one of the trailblazers of the folk rock genre
39:05and i'm fascinated to hear how they fuse authentic vietnamese sounds with contemporary instruments
39:14this band use a mix of traditional ancient instruments with amplified guitars and metal
39:24drumming it seems an incongruous mix but they managed to pull it off wow fantastic amazing wow thank you
39:34is this common in vietnam no nobody play that nobody's a fuck and rock together you're sort of like
39:41you know pioneers really in a way it's just amazing i've never heard anything like it
39:50it's a measure of the progress of the arts here that nam talk are playing this music at all
39:57i really want to ask you a little bit about these traditional instruments this instrument called dan
40:03dan john dan yeah and so you you strum here and then what and what are you doing here you're you're
40:12adjusting the pitch oh i see a vibration so you can have vibrato or you or pitch change right okay yes
40:24Wow, it's beautiful.
40:39Good technique.
40:41Could you explain to me a little bit about this?
40:43So we call that Dan Bao.
40:46Dan Bao.
40:46Dan Bao, only one string.
40:48The Dan Bao is an ancient one-string zither
40:51that has been adapted and amplified.
40:53The stem is bent to change the pitch of the string.
40:57Wow.
41:01Yes.
41:02Yes.
41:03Yes.
41:04Wow.
41:05Oh, wow.
41:06Amazing.
41:07It's so difficult to play.
41:10I mean, it takes an enormous amount of skill
41:14because it's about you have to feel where the sound is coming from.
41:21We have a gift for you.
41:23Oh, thank you.
41:24Here we go.
41:26This is nice.
41:27Vietnamese.
41:28Yeah.
41:30This is lovely.
41:33Okay, and this is the frog.
41:36Okay, so...
41:36Yeah.
41:37It's like a frog.
41:40It's like a frog sound.
41:40Right.
41:41Okay.
41:42So that's him.
41:44And then this little...
41:46That's great.
41:48Thank you so much.
41:49We have another song and you can try...
41:51I can join in.
41:53I'll play piano and frog.
41:54And frog.
41:55Yeah, yeah.
41:58Prepare for a world's first.
41:59Okay.
42:00Vietnamese folk rock, Bill Bailey style.
42:02Thank you so much.
42:55Whoa!
42:57Yeah!
42:59Fantastic.
43:00So when are we going on tour?
43:02I'm available, you know, I can come and jam with you guys any time
43:14Three two one
43:24Actually love this city it's a dynamic bustling metropolis full of
43:32resourcefulness full of young people full of bikes millions and millions of
43:37them and as a city dweller I kind of I love the energy and it's a place of
43:43contrast as well because let's not forget you know 50 years ago with the
43:48fall of Saigon is still present in people's memories and as I travel
43:54throughout this country I want to find out more about that balance a place
43:58which acknowledges the past but is embracing the future
44:07next time on Bill Bailey's Vietnam the lofted verdant hills of Dalat nothing
44:13says I love you like 64 knackered flamingos my mind's off on a whole bunch of other
44:19tangents I'm thinking about a sandwich I had in 1982
44:24they're watching me so everybody can do that
44:26they'll take you know that the garden can be on the front and not
44:28many to be careful with her and they'll be one of those
44:30like we have in 2012
44:32like we could see her and the side of the house
44:34like me being a kid
44:36that's a great job
44:38it's like it may be too clean
44:39like we could really like a side to play
44:42like I'm the guy that's good
44:44I want to see my boss
44:45like we could see a side to a side to the head
44:47like we could see a side to the head
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