Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) - Cambridge Medical Elective #10

good morning today we're saying goodbye to Cambodia for good and heading off to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam [Music] [Applause] [Music] here we are in Ho Chi Minh City were about to go up to our Airbnb apartment so we'll do a quick tour about and then we'll head out into the city and see what it's like [Music] [Applause] feels like we've hit a goldmine with this place and we've not even seen inside the apartment yet this is very very exciting [Music] so yesterday we went to the Vietnam War Museum a bit about the Vietnam War I'm honest think of a massive fan of museums like it was very interesting seeing the photographs and things but one of the reasons that I really enjoyed was the Cambodia genocide museum because the audio guide was so good it like told a story it told you to walk in different places it would say stuff like right here you are outside the courtyard and now walk through this place now walk through that place and it was a walk through through everything where as with most other museums I've been to it's been more of a self-directed learning type thing which I realized already a fan of when it comes to when it comes to learning about history and things like that today we're gonna be visiting the tunnels I think the tunnels were part of the Vietnam War but no entirely sure we've got a guide who explained everything so hopefully that should be good now I'm gonna join Martha for coffee and at a local coffee shop but I can't seem to fight question is how do we cross the road now please we made it alive let's place a pretty cool thing as the backwards this point about museums I do kind of feel I'm missing something one of his at museums and I'm not like verbally employed by them maybe it's just like a lack of intellectual curiosity I don't know surely lots of people feel that when they when they visit museum is that they like should be interested in it but they're not really and they were just quite like a nice coherent story like if I was nothing about the Vietnam War watching a Vox media video or watching a crash course world history video explain to Vietnam war would be really interesting that they tell the story whereas with museums often the onus is on us to kind of find the story and yeah I'm not really a massive fan of that but much rather than won't be done for me someone curates a kind of journey thank you very much this is the latte and this is the sugar syrup the compote I think I just got stood up by Ben's girlfriend she was supposed to meet me here and it turns out she went to the cafe next door tor hotel instead which means she didn't have to cross the road you know what I'm gonna enjoy its lovely day outside right on our way to the taxi which is gonna very kindly take us through the tunnels we're about half way along our journey to the caves and we stopped off at this workshop that's run by people who were victims of Agent Orange the chemical weapon that the Americans used in Vietnam about 40 years ago it's like this workshop theme whereby it's all handcrafted goods made by people who were either there at the time and therefore fell victim to the effective Agent Orange or who were their genetic offspring and therefore a drone and their own defense 50% of all profit made by the shop are given to the victims of Agent Orange Fund and has some pretty incredible stuff they've got [Music] right saying it's the Telamon what in the hammer is gonna be fun yeah apparently they've widened in my eyes 40% to tourists so we've just finished our tour of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army tunnels and it was really nice having a guide who showed us around and told us the story of what went on what was particularly interesting for me anyway was that it was almost a sense of national pride with which our guide was was explaining things like referring to the Vietnamese Army as we saying stuff like oh so the Americans would walk past this bridge and then we'd jump out of the ground and shoot them in the head kind of with a sense of Glee almost and Excel kind of explaining the booby traps and everything that the American soldiers fell for and the real sense of pride and that was interesting because obviously the Americans clearly lost the Vietnam War and now Vietnam has a sort of communist regime and as they say history is a story told by by the victors and I suppose that people in Vietnam people who go to school in Vietnam people who are brought up in Vietnam very much view the war as American aggression against the Vietnamese and feel proud of the fact that they want it which is which is interesting cuz normally you know it's the American see when it's it's the West that wins so that was that was really nice anytime we learn about the world was trying to buy that it's always even though we try to be as unbiased as possible in it and see and see different points of view there's still very much an us versus them conflict and asleep being in the UK we get it from the side of the Allies rather than the side of Germany so that's why it was particularly interesting to get the other perspective to get it from the side of the victory to weren't for the West I really quite like to learn more about the Vietnam War I feel almost almost positive that crash course small industry will have some kind of episode on it hopefully the hardcore history podcast might have some as well because it was such a big element of American history and of course Vietnam history as well and relatively recent times so yeah that was quite a fun trip to see the tunnels and understand a bit about how they were used in the Vietnam War we've got the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to explore ho Chi Minh City and I think we might go to one of the IMAX cinemas towards Dunkirk tonight so that should be fun but thank you very much watching please drop a like if you liked video please consider subscribing if you new here I'll see you in the next one bye