River Life on the Outskirts of Saigon 🇻🇳

June 2024 · 3 min read · Ho Chi Minh City

Strangely, how such a striking area exists completely out of the travel radar. People pay for tours to explore the Mekong Delta while they have such a wonderful authentic "waterworld" within the city.

I personally didn't hear about it although this is not my first time in Saigon. I just found a riverfront area on Google Satellite, densely occupied by small houses. I thought these could be slums, a sort of, worth looking at from one of the bridges.

First, I didn't feel quite comfortable about visiting that area where people do know what poverty means. I didn't and don't know Saigon well to be sure. But the owner of the hostel where I stay told me it's absolutely fine.

Nevertheless, I chose a weekday since Vietnamese love drinking on weekends (and sharing beers with strangers too) and I decided to avoid alleys among the huts and those small houses, at least this time.

I am not going to keep the intrigue for a long while: local people turned to be smiling and welcoming on those streets. Probably, they wanted to raise the spirits of an adventurous traveler.

Wouldn't it be redundant to say I didn't meet foreigners there? Doubt anybody from abroad visits these streets oftener than once a month.

So tranquil... if you forget about the legendary Vietnamese traffic 😁

However, if you get a good overdose of caffeine, you'll love this buzz too.

Happily, coffee in Vietnam is amazing and so cheap, on every corner.

But let's return from the coffee and chicken... back to the river life.

Yes, modern time pushes the past into the water. Once, it will drown in the stream of time. So, hurry up to see before it's too late!

That's how most people actually lived in Saigon, except they used more natural construction materials. No need to search for a proof for too long since saigoneer.com published many images of Saigon's old times.

It was great to find out the tradition of floating markets still exists or, better to say, smolders. Several boats along the riverbank contain fruits and seafood probably brought from remote rural areas.

Vendors sell them along the nearby highway. You can also see that the boats are also a place where these people sleep.

Once, they obviously used thatch and wood. Today, the boats look more... colorful.

Some of them are too old for traveling... And serve as homes.

The riverbanks stretch from the East to the West so, at sunset time, both sides were too shady to take perfect shots there.

Maybe, I'll return there to see how the place looks in the morning.

That modern building in the middle is Bitexco Financial Tower, a skyscraper in downtown.

Curious to see it in this outdated water world.

Around 6 pm, I reached a bridge over Kênh Tẻ canal I needed. There was a bus stop on the opposite side, I knew from the stage of planning.

Of course, I couldn't leave the bridge without taking images from both sides. (Definitely, I must come back to see the sunrise!)

I was out of water and thirsty as hell, I was risking being late for buses (I needed two to reach my hostel), I was soaked with sweat... and happy of motion, exploration, beauty... Pleasures of traveling!