Discover Vietnam: A Vietnam Podcast

Esta Ricardo is a Drag Queen and GenderFunk performer and Founder/Mother of GenderFunk. He loves exploring Gender through workshops, performance and lots of talking! Born in Birmingham he then lived in Manchester and London before studying Journalism in London. He then worked for the British Red Cross for 2 years and started performing in the radical arts festival scene in Europe.  He has now live...

The most difficult man to nail down for an interview is finally on Seven Million Bikes! Chef and Restaurateur Calvin Bui of El Camino and Dos Amigos Taqueria. A California native born of parents who escaped the fall out of the Vietnam war, Calvin has lived in Saigon for 10 years now and gone from a Wall Street Banker to owning and running successful restaurants in Saigon. Most notable for his fusi...

Angee the Diva is an American comedian based in Saigon, Vietnam. She was a 2019 finalist in the Vietnam Comedy Competition and has been a headlining gigs around Vietnam and South East Asia since 2017, as a solo comedian and as half of the comedy duo, “Stand Up for the Queens”. She has headlined solo in Canada and USA, as well. This mother of two, writer, event planner, and boss as bitch will leave...

Angee the Diva is an American comedian based in Saigon, Vietnam. She was a 2019 finalist in the Vietnam Comedy Competition and has been a headlining gigs around Vietnam and South East Asia since 2017, as a solo comedian and as half of the comedy duo, “Stand Up for the Queens”. She has headlined solo in Canada and USA, as well. This mother of two, writer, event planner, and boss as bitch will leave...

GiangSinh is named due to her birth date of December 24th, being Vietnamese for Christmas, which she still went by until recently. Her Vietnamese mother and father met in Indonesia where GiangSinh was born and lived there for the first 5 years of her life. After moving back to Saigon she has lived in Nha Trang, Singapore, LA and now back to Saigon again where she feels her heart belongs.  She has...

Ella Beth is a sassy jazz singer and more recently comedian hailing from Australia. Since leaving her hometown, singing has taken her all over Australia and Asia and in traveling she’s developed her own brand of on stage performance. This lead to being the first foreign competitor on The Voice Vietnam - making it all the way to the finals! We talk about her time in Vietnam which has been a rollerc...

Originally from Manchester, Damian Kilroy has lived in Vietnam for 10 years, 5 of those in Saigon, where most notably, he brought a raft of international artists to Saigon for the first time (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Mac DeMarco, The Cribs, The Vaccines). Now in Vung Tau, Damian is the owner of Cask Bar and is working on the 2nd year of Coracle Music Festival which takes place in Ho Tram at th...

TRIGGER WARNING: The subject of this episode is the reporting of sexual abuse in Vietnam. While there is nothing graphic in this episode, if you feel that this would be a trigger or discomforting please feel free to skip this episode. Sen is a journalist based in Saigon, Vietnam where she covers development, culture, and human rights. She writes for the English publication VnExpress International....

The first episode of Season 2 is with Saigon Funny People co-founder and resident cat lady, Vu Minh Tu ! Hanoi-born, Saigon-based Tu is a comedy force to be reckoned with. An established performer on the Vietnam circuit, her style can be described as like any stereotypical Asian female: passive aggressive. Tu's hilarious jokes at shows across the region have seen her collect numerous awards i...

This is an extra-special Seven Million Bikes ; our first ever crossover episode with fellow Saigon-based podcast, Sexy Meat Talks . A massive thank you to Sexy Meat Talk hosts, Joshua Durkin and Mark Gustafson, for being so open and enthusiastic to this collaboration. Mark, from the Chicago area in the U.S., is a Brew Master, Pit Master, and enthusiast of all things Meat! In addition, he is co-fou...

Tâm is the first listener-suggested guest, thanks to regular listener, Brandon Coleman. Tâm is an entertaining and interesting guest that has an in-depth story and many insights to share about life in Saigon, which can be seen by the length of this episode.  Born in Texas to Vietnamese refugees, Tâm moved to Saigon after a stint in Singapore.  Here in Saigon she worked at an international branding...

You may have seen Susan Li around town or posting on Fexpats . She is one of of Fexpats original founders and she's been really busy the last 6 years in Saigon! We cover a lot in this episode from the founding of Fexpats , RAD7 and Honey Badger Events to online trolls, dating in Saigon and opening a new bar, The Wreck , with Matt Ryan. Originally born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Susan de...

WARNING: If you are small minded and homophobic you can probably skip this episode. Daniel was born and raised in Saigon by conservative Northern parents, with his dad having fought for the North before moving South. Daniel faced the familiar familial pressures that many young people in Saigon face, to study hard and get good grades. Daniel's passions are and always have been music, food and...

Lewis Wright is a talented music producer from the UK who now lives in Saigon, working for InQ International producing kids songs for a Vietnamese audience and Vietnamese artists for an international audience. He even composed the popular theme music for Seven Million Bikes. Lewis is originally from the UK and has lived in Vietnam for just over a year, having visited and lived on and off in previo...

Greg has what would be for many a dream job - a freelance football journalist. After moving to Saigon in January Greg planned to stay for only three months, but now going to be staying for the foreseeable future. He was recently featured in The Guardian writing about digital nomads which Greg is currently debating whether that label applies to him. As both avid football fans Greg and I had so much...

“Rome is always Rome. Saigon is never Saigon. It’s always changing.” That line from this conversation stopped me in my tracks. I’ve lived in Saigon for nearly 10 years, and sometimes I forget just how intense, exciting, and different this city feels when you first arrive. Talking with Ebru, who had only been in Vietnam for three months, gave me a fresh perspective on a place I call home. What I re...

"All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises—just like not all who wander are lost." Niall Mackay sits down with James Hunt, an American expat in Vietnam known for his restaurant ventures like Brick and Barrel and Big Boss Bistro. However, James's story extends far beyond the world of fried chicken and culinary pursuits. He delves into his passion for wildlife photo...

Join The Community Phuong Truong, "just another lesbian in town", is the owner of Twist coffee bar in Thao Dien, a fun place for everyone and a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. We discuss the LQBTQ+ community in Vietnam in the context of religion, region and generational acceptance. We also talk about sex education in Vietnam in light of a recent story in VNExpress with the headline,...

“I never thought I was going to have kids here… that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind.” — Claire Simpson This episode with Claire really opened my eyes to a side of Vietnam I’ve never personally experienced but have always been curious about — what it’s actually like to be an expat parent here. I've interviewed entrepreneurs, creatives, teachers, founders… but motherhood is a whole differen...

Slawpi Đô, his pseudonym, shares why he is dedicated to learning Vietnamese. why he wants to be on Vietnamese TV, and talks about his military background, trying to start a business in Vietnam and learning to enjoy being unproductive.  In this episode Niall and Slawpi Đô talk about; what it is really like to be in the US Airforce Why he is learning Vietnamese the challenges of living in Vietnam th...

“The first thing I saw that I just loved so much is that the women here are so fearless.” — Amy Wenham This conversation with Amy was one of those episodes where I found myself nodding almost the entire time. I’ve been talking about how badass Vietnamese women are for years, but Amy put language to things I’ve seen but could never fully articulate. What I loved most is that she didn’t just compare...

Join the Seven Million Bikes Community. This episode’s guest, Tracey Nguyen Mang, is the founder and creator of the award winning podcast: The Vietnamese Boat People. This podcast shares the stories of hope, survival and resilience from the Vietnamese diaspora during 1975-1992. Tracey was so interesting and engaging an interview it went for nearly two hours. It's been edited into two parts wi...

“If I really spent $4,000 a month, I’d have a villa and a problem.” Having Markeiz back on Discover Vietnam felt like picking up a conversation we never really finished the first time. When he first joined me back in 2020, I was recording out of my bedroom, praying the iPhone wouldn’t ruin the audio. This time, we were sitting in a full podcast studio — lights, cameras, a technician, the whole lot...

This episode’s guest, Tracey Nguyen Mang, is the founder and creator of the Vietnamese Boat People podcast, an award winning podcast which shares the stories of the Vietnamese diaspora, and something that has often been discussed with previous guests on this show. Tracey was born the youngest of seven children, in Nha Trang Vietnam before her family risked their lives to flee Vietnam. Tracey was j...

Donate to Ukraine! I met Anastasia Sokyrka in Government Quarantine in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. You can listen to my episode with her and my wife, Adrie , about our experiences while we were living them. Since then we have become close friends, a silver lining of a tough experience (17 days with no mattress, no air con and no booze!) Finally, after two years of the pandemic Anastasia was...