Saigon is a capricious city, seducing visitors with a freewheeling spirit, then maddening them with traffic, noise and heat. Transformation is all around and the sound of construction reverberates through the city as forests of shiny sky-scrapers continue to shoot up. The choked streets roar with an evergrowing sea of traffic, while the footpaths are crowded with food vendors, pedestrians and hawkers with makeshift stalls, selling everything from brooms to motorcycle helmets.
This is a city that knows how to have a good time. The bar scene is flourishing with the young and the beautiful rubbing shoulders in venues as hip and unique as anything you’d find in New York or London. If you are searching for something grittier, the wild-lands of Bui Vien St serve up the kind of full-throttle mix of music, booze and special balloons that’ll leave you feeling pretty sure you had a good time only you can’t remember how exactly.
The heat and the crowds and the noise can at times overwhelm and it can all leave some visitors feeling like Saigon isn’t really for them. Too crowded, too busy, too loud, increasingly too commercialised and too bloody hot.
Hiding behind the city’s brash and bold exterior though, lies an eclectic maze of alleyways, weaving their way behind and between the traffic-choked main roads. Here, just footsteps away from modern high-rises and flashy malls, is a whole other side to Saigon where the hustle of city life slows to a saunter and it is in this tangled web of narrow lanes that the real soul of this city can be found.
If you want to experience Saigon as the locals see it, these alleyways or ‘hems’, are a wonderful place to get lost for a little while. Life is lived out in the open here – children play, while old men spend hours sipping coffee on plastic chairs. The doors of homes are wide open and you’ll see families sitting together on the floor, sharing meals and each others company. Around every corner is another food vendor and there are countless small cafes, quirky bars and other delights that won’t be found in any guidebook.
Just outside my front door. My favourite place for breakfast.
It is down one of these hems that I have found a place to call home. Even though we are living in one of the most densely populated cities on earth, with a population estimated to be approaching 10 million, life in Saigon’s hems offers a local, small-town vibe, that you don’t often get in a big city.
Recently, my Vietnamese housemate, Tram, asked me –
‘Hey Carly, were you buying a coffee today down near the canal?’
‘Yeah, how’d you know?’
‘I was talking to one of the neighbors, he said he saw you’.
Our rooftop. The perfect place to chill.
Apart from the people I live with, it’s not often I see another foreigner in the hems near my place. Most westerners tend to gravitate towards District Two, “The Bubble”, or District Seven, so when do I see another foreigner walking around near my house, my first thought is to wonder if they are lost.
I love where I live for it’s sense of community. My neighbors are friendly and warm, quick with a smile and even though we can’t say much to each other, there is a sense that we are all looking out for one another.
One evening, I arrived home and realised I had lost my house keys. I couldn’t understand how. I’d only been to a market and then to dinner so it wasn’t like I’d been drunk, wildly swinging my bag around a dance floor somewhere, but where ever they were and however they had been lost, they were certainly gone.
A couple of days later, after I’d already had new keys cut, Tram said to me,
“Carly, I have your keys.”
“What? Oh my gosh, where were they?”
“Someone found them in the street”.
“Where?”
“I don’t know where, but he brought them over for you.”.
I couldn’t believe it.
“But how did the person that found them know they were mine? How did they know to bring them to our house?”
“He thought they looked like a foreigner’s keys so he asked some neighbors if anyone knew any foreigners. Someone told him that this house has foreigners living in it, so he came around”.
My very “foreign-looking”, keys.
There is a neighbourly kindness here that I think is becoming increasingly lost in our modern world. One morning, my bike conked out right near home. I turned the key and pressed the start button multiple times, but she was going no-where. An old lady neighbour saw my troubles, grabbed my arm and indicated to me to follow her. We wound our way through the narrow alleys, me pushing my bike until we stopped at a house. The old lady rapped on the door and a young-ish man came out. They chatted in Vietnamese, then he mucked around with my bike for a bit, got it going again. I thanked them both in my smattering of Vietnamese and took off to work.
Saigon’s hems are a people-watchers dream and a constant source of new discovery and delights. If you are visiting this city you’ll find more to nourish your soul along here than at any of the better-known tourist sites. The brilliant website, Vietnam Coracle has an excellent guide to the best hem’s to wander and get a little lost in. Check is out and let me know how you go.
Hi, A nice post. Your place is Hotπ! just like our place π The noise, the traffic, the street, the street shops, oh almost like my place, From my country a straight line to east direction is your place π. And the key incident oh that kindness is becoming extinct in this world. and the place you are having such good people is really nice to know. π. Enjoyed reading ππβ¨ Have a great Week!
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Hey thanks! Yup, we have too seasons here, hot and hotter!
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Omgπ± Tats hotπ
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I loved Vietnam !! Excellent pho !
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I know right, the food here is one of the many joys of living in this city.
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And the seafood!!!
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I really love the writing here. It made me feel I was reading something by Graham Greene. It didn’t hurt that what you were describing is in itself so tantalising. Would you be interested in doing a guest post swap?
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Oh my God! cool! I haven’t done a guest post swap yet.
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I’m up for it if you are π Have a look at my blog, see if you’d be interested and let me know.
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Your writing is beautiful, let’s do this. Want to email me, carlymaree@gmail.com
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Thank you! Don’t mind if I do π
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I believe is a very interesting city to live in π
I hope one day I’ll see it π
That rooftop is gorgeous and having nice neighbors that smile definitely helps π
βforeign-lookingβ keys π great π
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It really is a great place. Yeah I still don’t get how my keys look foreign but at least I got them back!
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Yes, that is important π
I have nominated you for the Mystery Blogger Award if you would like to accept it π
https://popsiclesociety.com/2019/07/31/mystery-blogger-award-5-6/
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Carly, youβre writing so beautifully, I am so proud of you, I think you should submit this story to a magazine as it is perfect.
Just edit it to remove the βhβ from Vietnam Coracle as no-one will be able to find that website.
π I told you I want to be your editor ! ππ
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Hahahah thanks for that I’ll fix it up…. I am not sure magazines will like my story as much as my Mum but worth a shot I guess!
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Great post π
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Your rooftop looks so cute! The neighborly kindness you’ve experienced is so lovely to hear about. Although it sounds far too hot for me – I don’t deal with heat well at all. Nor crowds!
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Hi Carly, A great post. You make me feel as if I am in Saigon(almost:) Thank you for sharing where the locals live, in the alleyways. As you say, areas not talked about in the guidebooks. Great photos! The kindness of strangers always makes my heart feel good:) Erica
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What a fabulous place to live and what a wonderful community to be part of. It’s amazing that your keys found their way back to you, not sure that could happen anywhere else. Great post.
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Thanks it really is great here! And yeah, outside a very small town I don’t think I’d have been so lucky with the keys!!
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I miss this place! (Not the traffic there tho) π canβt wait to make another visit and enjoy the food β€οΈ
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Love this Carly. Great post. What a fabulous place you found to live, and what wonderful people. I remember during our brief time in Saigon (only a couple of days) finding the hems and feeling as if I’d found the real Saigon.
Alison
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Thanks so much! Yeah they are so interesting to explore and such a contrast to the rest of this crazy city.
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That night life looks awesome! Sounds like a great time! The photos you have taken are great. Vietnam sounds awesome! I have never been but sounds like it would be such a great experience. Xx
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Vietnam is just the best and it is a very exciting time to be in Saigon because so much is happening. It really is the city to come to to make dreams come true.
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I will have to keep it in mind xxx
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The best parts of a city can be found in its alley ways. I spent 30 days in North Vietnam but had to cut my trip short missing Saigon. Delightful to experience here on your page. Amazing story about neighborly kindness there.
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Thank, yes it is a lovely place to live. I love just wandering the local streets in any new city.
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Not only have you created a home, but you’ve found a wonderful community. That’s amazing! Love the look of your rooftop heaven.
I smiled at the expression”they looked like a foreignerβs keys”. How do foreigner keys look different compared to the locals?
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Thanks, yeah our rooftop is the best place for an evening beer.
And I still have no idea how my keys looked foreign! I even showed my Vietnamese friend I thought maybe something on the key ring wasn’t what a Vietnamese person might have and she said they looked like regular keys to her!
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That’s funny π
The good news is that someone’s intuition was right and you got your keys back! … and a story from it π
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Really enjoyed this introduction to the hems of Saigon and your life here, Carly. Thanks for opening my eyes to it.
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Thanks for stopping by, it is a lovely place to live.
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When walking through the alleys in Saigon or Hanoi, I feel like I have x-ray vision. Everything is open, and you can see right into houses and everyone goes about daily life.
That sense of community is certainly something we lack in our modern world, and it is nice that you have found a slice of it in Saigon. I live in Bangkok in a nice community and see the same people (and cats) every day. It is nice to have so many friends and acquaintances.
Great post – thanks for sharing.
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Thanks so much. Yeah it seems more neighbourly in this part of the world than it did back home.
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Wonderful post. I only passed through Saigon and was terribly unimpressed. But it takes time to get to know a place and feel at home, so maybe I just should have given it a bit longer. Maybe on my next trip.
By the way, i very much admired your bravery on your motorbike trip to Dalat… I never tried a motorbike in Vietnam – I was well and truly scared off by my experiences in Hangzhou, China. But I love to cycle!!
Lieve
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Yeah I came to Vietnam for a holiday and wasn’t so fussed on Saigon either, but it has turned out to be a wonderful place to live.
I think cycling is a wonderful way to get around. I was a bit nervous riding a motorbike when I first arrived but its not so bad now that I am used to it.
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As I am planning to return to Vietnam next month, maybe I should give Saigon another try. Work will be a lot more ad hoc as I can only stay for 6 months, so it may be more tricky to get a good contract. No harm in trying out various places within Vietnam…
Lieve
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I have heard this city described as a shit place to visit but a great place to live!
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Could be true. Maybe I should give it a whirl…
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A terrific story. I just started following you and love these posts – my wife and I suffer from “wanderlust” as well, and when we were in Venice last fall we spent a day in the “hidden” part of the island…where the tourists avoid and we found peace and tranquility…I love the positive energy of the Vietnamese, and this is on our top three “next place to go”.
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Hey, Venice is a place I have never been but would love to go.
Vietnam is wonderful I hope you make it over here.
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Venice is crowded but there are so many unique things to do: I posted many of them, like the islands nearby that cater to glass blowing and fabric shops, really special…yes, Vietnam has jumped into our top 3 places to go next – thanks for commenting!
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This was really interesting to read, especially since Iβve never been to Vietnam before. I love how you talk about the friendliness and honesty of people when they found your keys – that really is something that we lose sometimes and itβs nice to know that somewhere out there, people have still got it π
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Hey thanks so much and thanks for taking the time to read
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No problem!
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