Mr Saigon

I’ve been living here in Ho Chi Minh City (AKA Saigon) for a couple of months now. I have moved into a flat and have established a bit of a routine but it’s still a bit disorganised because I’ve not got used to working evenings.

Saigon has a population very similar to London (9 million) but has a much lower population density: 11,000 people per square mile compared to London’s 14,670. I’m living in Binh Thanh District which is north of the city centre and west of Thao Dien; the ward where I work. This area is nice because it’s central but there aren’t many other foreigners living here and it’s alive with the bustle of Vietnamese life.

I’m renting a floor of a villa from the family of Su who is the receptionist at work. I have a bathroom to myself, a kitchen-living room and a balcony so it feels like I have my own flat but with the advantage of some socialising with the family. Downstairs lives the landlady is Miss Trang, her two twin daughters Su and Sa, sometimes Miss Trang’s Australian boyfriend Steve is here and her niece Chu is here more often than not. Upstairs is Frank, an English teacher from Canada. Finally there is a chubby tomcat called Kodi.

I’ve been making the most of a nearby market to try all sorts of fruit I’d never heard of before! There are pomelos, starfruits, soursops, sweetsops, mangosteens and even more I haven’t learned the name of yet. The Vietnamese like to eat their fresh fruit with chilli-salt, a habit I can’t get used to myself!

I recently went with the family to Vung Tau, a nearby seaside resort. Vung Tau is a peninsula so has beach on three sides. It’s very popular with Saigonese workers taking mini-breaks, especially on public holidays. It’s not as popular with international tourists as other resorts like Da Nang (the US army’s holiday resort during the war) and Nha Trang (it’s popular with Russians and Chinese but nobody knows why). We stayed overnight in a flat Miss Trang owns and went to the beach in the morning. The sea was incredibly warm!

Public transport in Saigon is fairly poor. They started building a light railway in 2008 (some parts underground and some parts elevated) and it’s due to open next year but nobody believes that and looking at the state of it, I can see why. Most people get around by moped, you can even book a moped taxi using an app which is really convenient! When I first met Vietnamese people in Manchester in about 2015, they told me that only the super rich in Vietnam drive cars. However the wealth of the country has grown and a car is the thing to have now if you want to show off how bougie you are. The cars cause chaos on the roads because a) the roads are too small, with no pavements and b) the people who drive them believe they have right of way over everyone in front of them on the road. Nothing says you’ve made it in life like bullying a little old lady into walking in a puddle!

On the other hand, buses here are really good. They’re old and not air conditioned so most people turn their noses up at them but I love taking the bus. They’re cheap and reliable. You can go across the city for about 20p and there is an app for tracking where your bus is when you’re waiting. One quirk is that some buses have scheduled stops to let street vendors on to sell passengers fruit juice and coffee!

I’ve not visited everywhere in the city yet. I went to District 7 for my housemates birthday. District 7 is like a Korea Town, full of Korean shops and restaurants where the Korean staff don’t speak Vietnamese so speak to everyone in English! There is also a China Town (District 5), where I went with colleagues for the Lantern Festival which is celebrated in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese culture. It is also known as the mid-autumn festival and is analogous to the British harvest festival and is celebrated on the full moon in the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This year it fell on the 13th of September.