Exploring Saigon and Beyond - Saigoneer

Hẻm Gems: At Den the Bar, Making Friends Is as Easy as Finding a New Favorite Drink

2026-11-08T16:00:00+07:00

At Den the Bar, you first come in for a drink, maybe stay a little longer to chat, then come back to catch up. And before you know it, you've become a regular, made a few friends, and sometimes even end up as part of the next generation of bartenders. For over 10 years, Den has become a place where human connections, creativity, and knowledge sharing matter more than fancy bottles. And behind it all lies a slightly bigger ambition: changing the way bartending is seen in Vietnam.

A little bit of everyone

One could easily walk past Den without realizing it's a bar. In a quiet little alley in District 3, one house stands out, painted entirely black. Pop, rock, or whatever the customers fancy that night drifts outside, along with laughter and singing. Red-and-black graffiti covers the rolling shutter, while Quang’s vintage red motorbike practically blocks the entrance, almost as if nobody wants you to come in. Squeeze past it, slide open what might be the heaviest door in all of Saigon, and welcome to Den!

The inconspicuous door to Den

The first person to welcome you is a giant Halloween witch, followed by the Queen of Hearts holding a “Drink Me” sign, both drawn in chalk on the wall. Vietnamese lucky money envelopes swing in the air every time ice rattles inside a shaker. Now, if you adjust your focus a little and look past them, you'll spot a Russian version of Tom and Jerry cartoon playing on a loop on the wall, and right next to it, on the second-floor mezzanine, a gigantic Christmas tree.

Take a seat at the counter, and while you're served water in a tiny glass, try to spot all the different objects hidden here and there: Christmas baubles, a warming eye mask, a huge pink hair comb, dozens of board games, cameras, garlands, drawings, and a bit of everything and nothing. Above the shelves full of bottles, a wheel decides your happy hour fate: 10%, 15%, or 30% off your cocktail… or, if you're unlucky, 25% more.

The black wall is a great canvas for doodling.

Despite its all-black walls, Den doesn’t take its name from the Vietnamese word đen, meaning the color black. It is “Den” as in a fox's den, a nod to Alice in Wonderland. As Quang, the bartender, explains, once you fall down that hole, you enter another world.

About 10 years ago, five architect friends opened a bar where artists and architects could hang out. Over time, the place slowly filled up with little contributions from everyone. “I think it was Christmas 2017. The owner and his friends put up a huge tree and these garlands here. Nobody really bothered to take them down,” Quang laughs. “People used to draw and redraw things on the big black wall. Somehow, the Halloween witch became the official drawing.”

Then comes 2020. The pandemic hits, Den struggles and four of the five founders eventually step away. The last one bought their shares to keep the place going.

Today, the place still has a slightly improvised feel. But between the laughter, pop songs, and the clinking of glasses, one sound stands out: Quang's cocktail shaker. In fact, while most of the bar seems to run on improvisation, cocktail-making follows a rather different logic. One that begins with a pretty unexpected question.

What do you hate in a drink?

At Den, there is a menu. Or maybe that's just a legend. I don't think anybody's ever seen it. Instead, Quang starts by asking what you hate. He follows a sort of theory of taste, a circular logic of flavors that complement or oppose each other. By knowing what you dislike, he can narrow down the tastes you might enjoy, including those you don't even know you like yet.

“It's not a regular order, it's a conversation. I start by asking questions to make you curious about ingredients, finding out what you haven't tried yet, and maybe, telling you more about wines, spirits, and different flavors. Through that conversation, I figure out what to make. For me, it improves my cognitive abilities and trains my creativity. For you, it brings more than just a flavor you might enjoy: an experience, some knowledge, something new to discover. It's about experimenting, for both of us.”

Quang's connection with Den started like many others in Vietnam: via Facebook.

Over my many visits, I've been served everything from a super-sour, foamy, bluish floral fizz to a perfectly made lemonade topped with whiskey, a cocktail inspired by berry yogurt, and an amazing creamy tequila-and-coffee take on an espresso martini.

And contrary to what you might expect, Quang doesn't go for expensive or fancy bottles. His spirits are affordable, the garnishes minimal, and the ingredients pretty simple. For him, a cocktail's value depends on what the bartender can do with what they have. Apple and cherry flavors, for example, can combine into something resembling pineapple.

“If I had access to every flavor, it would kill my creativity,” he quips. And perhaps that's the real ingredient in his cocktails: not just what's in the glass, but the person making it and the vision behind it.

Behind the counter

A few days later, I returned before opening hours to hear the rest of Quang's story. This time, the lights are on, and the bar has turned into a classroom.

“My grandfather was a herbal doctor. A doctor heals the body, a bartender heals the soul,” Quang says. Yet bartending wasn't exactly his calling. After working in restaurants and real estate, he started as a barback, carrying boxes and cleaning. That's where he met his Vietnamese-Canadian mentor from Nha Trang who used to ask “What do you think a bartender should be?” The answer is more of a holistic idea: someone who knows how to take care of the entire bar. The customers, the coworkers, the place, and above all, themselves.

The garland stays on year-round.

He explains: “Bartending is a nighttime profession. It can easily get physically and mentally draining if you don't take care of yourself. It might seem shallow, and I can't really explain it, but when I started taking care of my body and mind, I became a better bartender. How can you take care of others if you don't take care of yourself? How can you be creative if you don't let your mind rest?”

Eventually, his mentor quit, and Quang followed a few months later. A Facebook post led him to Den, where he met the actual owner, the last of the five original founders. The two shared a similar idea of what bartending should be. But behind this idea was also a bigger ambition.

The current owner (left) is the last of the original five.

They often look back with admiration at an older generation of Vietnamese bartenders, feeling like somewhere between the business of selling drinks and the art of making them, something has been lost. It's not necessarily a change they want to condemn, but one that they want to offer an alternative to: one built around creativity, hospitality, and human connection.

And what better way to keep that alive than to pass it on?

Next round is on them

From 5pm to 9pm, Den becomes a classroom. The bottles and shakers are still there, but now the students step behind the counter. And they already know the place pretty well, as they were customers first. Phúc, who discovered Den through a friend, was first surprised by the social side of the bar. “I know it's so simple, but it really surprised me. I'd never sat at a bar and talked with people like that. I thought that only happened in Japan,” he recalls.

“I don't teach, I share.”

One evening, Quang shared his vision with Phúc and mentioned that he wanted to train some new bartenders. Phúc asked if he could sign up, and here he is, getting paid to learn something he's become passionate about, with absolutely no professional experience or formal training. “I was just a good drinker,” he jokes. “But I think Quang saw something else in me: curiosity, motivation, and a willingness to learn. He's a good teacher.”

From upstairs, Quang calls out: “I don't teach, I share.”

Some lessons start with something as simple as tasting lemon juice, others with a crash course in oenology. After 7pm, the apprentices join Quang behind the counter, serving drinks, chatting with customers, and becoming part of the very community that first brought them here.

Quang doesn't plan on changing the entire bartending industry in Vietnam. But he hopes to at least show that there's another way, starting with a little community, in a little alley of Saigon. One where the job isn't just about selling bottles or making cocktails, but also about meeting people, sharing knowledge, and building connections.

And somewhere between the Christmas decorations, the never-ending conversations, and the cocktail lessons before opening hours, I think that vision is already taking shape at Den. A place where people come for a drink, and somehow end up finding their people.

Den the Bar

92/21 Phạm Ngọc Thạch, Xuân Hòa Ward, HCMC

How the General Sciences Library's Design Maintains Cultural Traditions via Modernist Language

2026-11-06T10:00:00+07:00

Beyond being a fine modernist building with great functionality achieved through clever master planning and microclimatic strategies, the General Sciences Library of Hồ Chí Minh City also encompasses a repertoire of symbolism inspired by Vietnamese traditional culture, expressed in the language of concrete, steel, and wood.

The front of the General Sciences Library with visible floating roof feature. Photo by Phạm Phú Vinh.

From abstraction of idiographic characters to sacred animals and stylized fences, the General Sciences Library of HCMC is a catalog of architectural designs inspired by a millennia-old culture entering its modern age. From the building's inception, its architects — Bùi Quang Hanh, Nguyễn Hữu Thiện and Lê Văn Lắm — sought a Vietnamese appearance for the project. In an undated report, they presented the main concepts for the project, one of which explicitly aimed for this:

“If placed in the context of an independent nation, it is essential to promote national culture in order to mark a new renaissance. Architecture would be studied with Vietnamese characteristics, both on the exterior and the interior; reading rooms, reception halls, auditoriums, exhibition rooms, and so on would be designed and decorated in the Vietnamese style.”

While possessing uniquely extravagant examples of Vietnamese modernist design, functionality regarding airflow, shade, and heat dispersal remains a priority.

The general form

The project’s emphasis on translating traditional motifs into modernist language can be seen in the general form of the building. Besides being the “archetype” of tropical modernist architecture with micro-climatic elements like double skin, or floating roof, surrounding moat and garden, the architects metaphorized traditional Vietnamese architectural forms into its new modernist expressions.

The General Sciences Library when seen from behind.

The most brilliant example is the floating roof. The concrete beams are exposed under the roof, evoking the bẩy in traditional Vietnamese houses and communal pavilions (đình). The roof’s design is also stylized by a diagonal cut, hinting at the omnipresent pitched roof. The library is thus a concrete version of a traditional đình, a civic structure of climatic comfort and cultural activities.

The building when seen from the front (left) and back (right).

Traditional imagery

The next strategy for bringing historic features into modernist language is the integration of sacred animals and characters into the design of functional elements. For example, the thọ (壽 / longevity) and vạn (卍 / light, enlightenment) letters have their calligraphic traits transformed into structural elements of the double skin. They are interlocked with one another to create a curtain, woven and wrapped around the building’s envelope to provide light and thermal comfort

Various brise-soleil features found throughout the building.

These characters’ geometry was also studied by the architects to create abstract composition for the interior space. Not only are they decorative motifs, the geometric lines also serve as a light-filtering screen with reinforced structural rigidity.

Carefully designed skylights and accents are eye-catching features when inside the building.

Besides the letters, sacred mythological animals are also included in the designs as decorative fresque. These dragons and phoenix, part of the four sacred animals (Tứ linh) reflecting the construction of the universe, are commonly seen in East Asian cultures. Their compositions were inspired by traditional Vietnamese wood engravings, with complex patterns and sophisticated figures, typically seen in the furniture designs in temples or imperial palaces.

The traditional phoenix seen from Pasteur Street is a identifying feature of the General Sciences Library when seen from behind.

Abstractions

Even though the metaphors are the most recognizable features of the library, its true genius lies more in the creative grammar that the architects adopted to abstract Vietnamese aesthetics. Abstractions stylize and reimagine complex traditional forms to create a modern look through a process of geometrical experimentation. By using pure lines and shapes, the architects managed to achieve visual harmony.

Using industrial materials, rather than recreating traditional architecture, they used abstractions to relate to a particular aesthetic of Vietnamese culture. They captured figures, patterns, and a sense of proportionality, which were extracted and simplified before being translated into functional elements. The geometrical codes of these elements, which include railings and the ground’s surrounding fences, therefore reflect the visual identities of Vietnamese traditional arts.

Gate and tower feature designs.

Its heritage

The General Sciences Library is one of the most condensed modernist expressions of traditional Vietnamese aesthetics, with symbols of philosophical significance. From the thọ and vạn letters incarnating aspirations of enlightenment and eternity, to the sacred figures representing aspects of the universe, the design inherits a traditional Vietnamese metaphysical sense of the world. It also reflects the time period’s optimism and future-oriented mindset that also embraced the past by recreating it as a means to seek new excellence for a different epoch.

Geometric patterns are found throughout the building including banisters on the front stairs.

The design lessons that Bùi Quang Hanh, Nguyễn Hữu Thiện and Lê Văn Lắm have left us weren’t a static and sealed object. It was a creative attitude which later propagated into the popular building practice that generated the mass architectural reserve of Vietnamese vernacular modernism. They provided inspiration for how abstract architectonic transformations could be taken over and reinvented by the general population as a collective knowledge of design.

In addition to serving as a great model for Vietnamese modernist ideas, the General Sciences Library is a popular place to work and study, cherished by Saigoneers today.

This building is a reflection of both cultural and political attitudes in mid-century Vietnam. It was a key period of Vietnamese modernity and its modern arts, as well as Vietnamese post-colonial nationalism, affirming the nation’s independence through architecture. This library was fortunately not alone. Multiple projects — namely the V.A.R building, the VOH Radio Building, the Independence Palace, etc. — provide significant lessons about climatic, aesthetic, spiritual and cultural identity. Unfortunately, they are neither thoroughly documented nor protected.

In the face of indifferent architectural consumerism and the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence about what it means to invent, the protection of these masterpieces is a critical anchor that will help new generations of creators navigate their creativity. A thorough documentation of these works is an essential step in the recognition and preservation of Vietnamese modernist heritage.

Hẻm Gems: In Huế, Cơm Hến Bé Liêm Is Breakfast With a Side of Warm Hospitality

2026-11-06T08:00:00+07:00

One of the small joys in life is having a favorite dish readily available whenever you crave it. Ever since I discovered the little hẻm in Saigon where Cơm Hến O Thu lies, my life has been ever so uplifted by the comfort that, every fortnight or so, I can hop on my motorbike, sit for 15 minutes, and have cơm hến on the table in a blink of an eye for gulping pleasures. Cơm hến is one of my favorite things, so naturally, when I got a chance to visit Huế, the dish’s hometown, there was no way I could miss out on this small joy that packs big flavors.

There is very little you can say about the decoration or interior design of Cơm Hến Bé Liêm, because very little attention has been paid to it — which, in this case, is a good thing, because it means the proprietor cares more about the food they serve than where they serve it. The eatery is located in a convenient spot on Nguyễn Công Trứ Street. The family lives on one side of a nondescript yellow house, while on the right, a semi-open space serves as the dining and kitchen for their thriving cơm hến operation. Walking past a peacefully napping dog and under a verdant vine-covered pergola, you will be greeted by rows of low plastic chairs and tables that have definitely seen better days.

Cơm Hến Bé Liêm is open from 6am, just in time for an early breakfast.

I’ve been Pavlov-ed by Vietnamese street food places so much that I practically start salivating whenever I see light blue plastic chairs, not because I’m hankering for a bite of that greasy plastic, but for the culinary orgasm that they often herald. It was a Monday morning, so the dining space wasn’t crowded. There was an air of subdued routine amongst diners, who were mostly Huế residents catching a quick bite before heading to work — we were the only rowdy tourists sitting on the edge of our tiny stools, humming with anticipation.

Usually, eating in casual street food settings like this, I’m not one to police the attitude of staff. F&B, especially in this economic climate, is back-breaking, hernia-inducing work, so as long as they don’t punch me in the face or slash my tires, we’re cool. However, I feel the need to point out that the people at Cơm Hến Bé Liêm were really sweet and accommodating, especially to a party of seven people of varying ages and dietary finickings. The fact that, according to multiple online reviews, local taxi drivers and xe ôm uncles keep recommending this place to visitors is a testament to its service and the tastiness of its food.

The people who run the place are some of the nicest people I've come across during my travesls across Vietnam.

Like hundreds of other cơm hến eateries in Huế, Bé Liêm serves only the star dish, though one can opt to switch out rice for bún or instant noodles — all for just VND15,000 a portion. On each table, there is a plate of 10 banana leaf-wrapped chả for diners to fortify their bowl if needed; these morsels of pork sausage are chewy and perfectly seasoned, but I personally think they fit clumsily in a cơm hến bowl as they are too chunky compared to the other perfectly chopped toppings. After a few minutes of us sitting around trading complaints about the Huế heat, our portions of cơm hến arrived.

Freshly assembled cơm hến.

Of every step involved in the dining experience, this is perhaps one of my favorite parts: when the food lands in front of me, putting a temporary suspension on the anticipation and hunger and showing off its glamorous bells and whistles. This is the best that any given dish will look on your table, so take it all in, waft the palpable aroma into your nostrils, feast your eyes on the freshness of the herbs, and enjoy it in any other senses because your palate does its job. A bowl of cơm hến is always a visual treat — on a bed of white fluffy rice grains, snippets of different shades of green peek out in between golden puffs of pork crackling and nubs of baby hến. Chopped Thai basil leaves, shreds of yellow young mango, slices of starfruit, and spongy stalks of dọc mùng form a luxuriant undergrowth just waiting for your spoon to dig in.

Made from cold rice and other simple veggies, cơm hến is a surprisingly balanced meal.

Cơm hến can be eaten any time of the day, but to me, it is the perfect breakfast with a balanced nutrient profile to fuel a busy day at work or school: just enough carb in the form of rice for energy, plenty of fiber from a diverse array of fresh vegetables, protein from the clams, fat from pork crackling, and heat from the chili oil to dispel any lingering lethargy. Bé Liêm has managed to evade some common setbacks that can sully the cơm hến experience, like sandy cold rice, clams that are past their prime, or fishy broth. Add in a teaspoon, or half if you’re a wuss like me, of chili oil, some shrimp paste, mix everything together with vigor — and your bowl of cơm hến is ready to be snacked on. I say “snack” because one bowl is never enough for me. My palate yearns for that comforting mix of savory shrimp paste, tingling heat, and crunchy veggies, so much so that I always get two, or even three on a hot day, bowls in one sitting.

Bún hến and cơm hến.

Every Vietnamese dish has a story behind it. Even right in Huế, nem công chả phượng is a living remnant of the grandiose court cuisine that past emperors enjoyed. Cơm hến, however, hails from much humbler origins on the submerged low-tide stretches along the Hương River, especially around Cồn Hến, a patch of land formed by river sediments and the ideal habitat for baby clams to thrive. Leftover rice, hến caught right from the water, and unripe fruits from the backyard are the simple ingredients that have allowed cơm hến to stay affordable and, over time, spread to all corners of Huế, becoming a satisfying snack for anyone, any time of the day.

To sum up:

Opening time: 6am–until stock runs out
Parking: Bike only
Contact: 0795538330
Average cost per person: $ (Under VND100,000)
Payment: Cash, Transfer
Delivery App: ShopeeFood

Cơm Hến Bé Liêm

64 Nguyễn Công Trứ, Phú Hội Ward, Huế

Is It Possible to Feel Nostalgic for Rest Stops, the Liminal Space We're Supposed to Forget?

2026-11-05T10:00:00+07:00

If the long-distance bus is a person, there’s a high chance that it’s a character who’s not very well-liked. Perhaps it’s a rude guy who smokes like a chimney and often yells whenever someone overtakes him. If the bus is female, then it’s a moody princess, especially during long holidays. Countless people queue up in hopes of accompanying her on trips, but she only takes the few earliest arrivals, and will give them a hard time with everything.

What I remember the most about the long-distance bus trips of my life is the brightly lit window frames flashing in the night, and the half-sleepy, half-alert state I was in every time, set to the driver’s greatest bolero hits soundtrack. The scenery outside repeats itself after a while, but I strangely never find it boring. I can peer through the windows for hours, just to marvel at the endless dragon fruit orchards of Bình Thuận or cloud-wrapped houses atop the Đắk Lắk highlands.

With every blink of my eyes, those scenes of nature slowly fade in and out in my mind, tinged with wistfulness. Perhaps rest stops are born of a need to anchor us down to reality after hours spent mesmerized by passing sceneries. In the middle of trips across hundreds of kilometers and a handful of rest stops, sometimes I wonder if anyone ever feels a longing for those temporary rests?

I once read about the concept of a non-place, put forth by French anthropologist Marc Augé, which precisely portrays that feeling of alienation I feel in the middle of a crowded place. A non-place is somewhere you pass by to reach a different place, such as the many rest stops you drop by on the road to a holiday destination. It rarely elicits any emotions in visitors because it’s not their ending, like video footage filled with instructions but lacking sound. While at rest stops, we can satisfy needs without uttering a word, via signage, advertising banners, and visual cues everywhere. The most basic human needs are met: from eating and drinking to peeing and pooping. Our individual identities seem to momentarily fade away as we go through the same need-meeting movements and rituals.

That’s one way to dissect the rest stop through a western framework, but one could try to dig deeper into the archive of their mind, and that non-place might surprise us with surprisingly strong emotions.

Would anyone be able to recall what they did at the numerous rest stops they’ve been through in their life?

When I was in elementary school, I once boarded a bus with my family to the north. Our road infrastructure was not as developed then, so it took us three days to arrive. Throughout the trip, I stopped keeping track of how many times we got on and off to visit a rest stop. However, I can still vividly remember the kids my age who were actually living there. One time, I followed them through the thick throng of people and arrived at a small room. In front were a smattering of footwear. Inside, they were laughing and playing, so I pictured a hidden playground for kids. A while later, those same kids left the room to carry plates of food to the table for guests. I didn’t really understand much about life at the time, so I only noticed how different my summer could look compared to theirs, even though we were of the same age group.

Another aspect that remains entrenched in my memory about rest stops — as a car-sickness sufferer — is the smell. It’s still just as vivid, even in my reminiscence. A mix of diesel and car exhaust lingers on my clothes, my hair, and every corner of the rest stop. Then, there’s the aroma of prepared food from the stalls, especially phở. Mom often ordered an adult portion and asked for a small bowl to scoop some out for me. The smell was never that strong, but in combination with every other element in the atmosphere, it’s become a hard-to-forget experience.

One rest stop that has stayed with me is the one right after the Hải Vân Pass. Below the canopies, the shops were brightly lit and a stream of passengers flowed in and out, but just turn your head to the other direction and the view was completely different. Cliffs, hills, and expansive stretches of foliage filled the scene. In between the wilderness was the soft lighting of small temples, like torches guarding the sacred jungle.

The summer I turned 16, I got a job working at a rest stop after a friend suggested I join them.

Every day, I woke up at 4am and traveled 10 kilometers to work. The workday ended at 7pm, when I made the same trip home. I was assigned the bánh bao, sugarcane juice, and phèn la pancake stations — the latter was the most popular at the rest stop. Bánh bao always attracts customers thanks to its ease of transport, fulfilling meat and dough skin combo, and warmth. Adults nibble on them as a mid-trip snack that they can bring back to their seats, while children adore the fluffy bun and quail eggs.

In addition to shopkeeping, I also wiped tables, arranged takeaway boxes, cleaned the counter, and topped up products in between bus arrivals. I felt as if I was a cog in the rest stop assembly line. Right at 6am, the first round of bus passengers poured into the dining hall. Today was the same as yesterday. Every element functioned as if programmed: buses arrived and departed right on time. We didn’t really need to chit-chat too much with the guests. They came, made a quick purchase, rested their legs for a couple of minutes, and then left forever.

Only after I stepped inside this liminal non-place myself did I start to perceive it differently.

Years ago, I was once on the other side of the counter, looking at the kids who worked at the rest stop and wondering to myself: why didn’t they travel to their hometown like me? Back then, I thought they must have a tough livelihood. To get me to behave, Mom often told me stories about kids who had to start their adult life early, so I only saw them through a lens of childish pity, from a sheltered kid.

The rest stop was actually a meaningful place in my maturation.

Not until I stood there behind the display myself could I understand that the world is wide and more complex than what I once knew, and that perhaps I shouldn’t impose my frame of reference on other people’s lives. Each child was born into a different circumstance, and behind those counters were stories that a passerby like me could not completely grasp. Perhaps, amid the busyness at rest stops, they too enjoyed the little moments of fun too, like that “secret nap room” that I once spotted through the window that day.

As for me, I never saw the summer at 16 as a tradeoff for a more conventional holiday. On the contrary, those three months behind the staff counter in the middle of countless buses have become an invaluable experience outside of school. Once summer ended, I could buy little gifts for my family with my salary.

A rest stop is like a boarding pass of human life: the more times we encounter them, the more we have traveled. As a little kid, I had to grip the back of my parents’ shirts every time we got off in fear of losing them, but as a high schooler, I could stand at a counter on my own, preparing food and marveling at the never-ending stream of strangers whom I would never see again. And as a college student, I once again became one of those strangers stopping by after hundreds of kilometers on my bike to buy bánh bao, rest, and then leave.

Each of us, I think, will experience some milestones of our own at a rest stop. That could be the first long-distance trip, the first time driving across provinces, or a chance encounter. So, if the timing is right, I hope we can take a moment to slow down to notice if one visit differs from the next. I wish everybody a safe trip on their own journey before and after a rest stop.

Experience Cát Tiên National Park's Nature Sounds as Ambient Noises to Relax/Study To

2026-11-03T11:00:00+07:00

Cát Tiên National Park's calming bird songs, insect cries, and rushing waters are now available as a customizable, uninterrupted soundscape for your listening pleasure.

The soothing noises of the beloved southern forest is made possible because of a collaboration between Vietnam Sound Library and MyNoise, an online repository of “interactive soundscapes and customizable noise generators designed to promote focus, sleep, relaxation, and effective sound masking,” accessed by over 15,000 people a day.

The page for the “Cát Tiên” channel on MyNoise

Users can listen to uninterrupted, consistent sounds of the national park's nature and manually adjust levels for nine specific elements, including distant rapids, stream, rainwashed birds, canopy life, and morning cicadas. Several presets, including Forest Depths, Morning Birds, and Forest Heat, optimize the balances for different listening experiences. One can easily imagine them playing softly in a coffee shop that fosters studying and focused work, a spa lobby, or a bedroom on a slow morning when one yearns to escape the city's concrete stage clips.

Of the collaboration, Stéphane Pigeon, MyNoise's founder and operator, explains: “About a year ago, I received a kind email from Vietnam. Khoa, a sound recordist from Saigon, wanted to share his recordings with me. I answered right away, enthusiastic... and then, nothing. Silence for almost a year. Then one day, a beautiful collection arrived in my inbox, together with an apology for the long silence and an explanation. At the time of his first email, Khoa's recordings were mostly urban soundscapes and, in his own words, not quite in the spirit of myNoise. So instead of sending what he had, he decided to go out and record what he felt myNoise deserved. What he brought back is a summer forest in Cát Tiên National Park, in southern Vietnam, one of the richest lowland forests left in the region. I could hear the effort in those files the very first time I played them. They needed very little from me: a distant plane removed here, a few faraway voices there, and the forest was ready to breathe on myNoise!”

Khoa busy at work preparing sounds. Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

Saigoneer recently profiled Vietnam Sound Library, so we are not surprised by the focus or quality of the recordings. Khoa and Thủy, the duo behind the project, have been amassing a tremendous library of Vietnamese sounds to support Khoa's work as a film sound designer as well as a matter of preserving the nation's culture as expressed via everyday audio. When we visited their studio, Saigoneer got a sneak peek at the audios recorded in Cát Tiên, which were ultimately used in the recent movie Nghỉ hè sợ nghỉ hưu ( Meets Hero).

The sounds of Cát Tiên fit in perfectly in an archive that includes ambient noise from waterfalls, Japanese gardens, purring cats, and much more, including albums found on popular streaming sites. Free for personal use, the archive began as a passion project by Pigeon, a signal processing engineer with a strong passion for sounds. Its success has allowed him to focus on it full-time.

Bạch Nam Hải’s Documentary Photo Series Captures Sapa's 7 Years of Transformation

2026-11-02T08:00:00+07:00

From the town to the depths of the misty mountains of Sapa, Bạch Nam Hải embarked on a documentary photographic journey, capturing the essence of local life, the intimate connections between people and nature, and the contrast between the natural landscape and rapid urban development fueled by tourism expansion.

“TRÊN ĐỈNH ĐỔI THAY” (MOUNTAINS OF CHANGE) is a documentary photo series by photographer Bạch Nam Hải, developed over seven years from 2017 to 2024. The photo series captures the transformation of Sapa — a small town and also a tourist destination known for its misty mountains, chilling weather, and vibrant ethnic cultures — amidst the inevitable force of urbanization and tourism development. Images of hotel construction along the hillside, intimate portraits in town and from the mountains, or landscape photos featuring daily lives of the villagers, the photo series captures the reality that the photographer has witnessed, and offers a glimpse into what lies beneath the surface of what tourists usually see — both hidden but also visible all at once.

What began as a 10-day visit unexpectedly turned into a three-week stay. After spending weeks wandering from the town through the mountains, encountering local people and witnessing rapid changes happening across the hillsides, Hải was filled with mixed emotions and thoughts. He decided to revisit Sapa again to continue this photo series, which eventually developed into a seven-year photographic journey. He felt that there was a bigger story to be told about this land and its people, and he captured everything through documentary photography, with the aim of documenting real moments happening in front of his eyes.

Even before the rise of social media marketing and large-scale tourism today, Sapa had already become a tourist destination dating back to the early 20^th century during French colonization. Since then until now, the town has witnessed massive waves of developments, new immigrants, businesses, and large-scale investments. Home to the ethnic minority communities and its misty mountains and cool weather, Sapa has been known for its photogenic destination for visitors who come in search of serenity and a sense of healing in nature, with iconic sites such as Sapa’s central square (Quảng trường Sa Pa), the Sun Plaza clock tower, Mường Hoa Valley, and Cát Cát Village, etc.

To meet the ever-growing demand from domestic and international tourists, new hotels and homestays are continuously being built, stretching beyond the town and reaching the untouched hillsides. In Bạch Nam Hải’s black-and-white photographs, the contrast between the vast landscape against the tough structures of concrete and steel reflects the reality of rapid urbanization and investment. This visual tension brings out a fragile in-between state — neither past nor future, but a present caught in transition and filled with uncertainties — of a town undergoing “work in progress” with nostalgia, and conveying a sense of melancholy for the disappearing natural landscapes.

Anyone who has visited Sapa at least once has likely encountered young children or people dressed in traditional thổ cẩm brocade attire, approaching tourists to sell handmade souvenirs. While many tourists find themselves fascinated and curious, often pulling out their phones to capture the moments, Bạch Nam Hải’s photographs unfold a deeper narrative behind those interactions. It shows that the children are not only selling goods in touristy areas, but they are also navigating a world where tourism has become a central part of their lives. Through both candid scenes and intimate portraits, it feels like the children are compelled to grow up quickly against the rapid changes of urbanization and development. With modern western-looking buildings and natural landscapes in the background, the photographs subtly question the cost of progress and draw attention to the often-overlooked realities of people’s quality of life in this town.

Moving beyond the town, the photographer ventured deep into the mountains, where he found himself immersed in vast natural landscapes and the quiet and intimate rhythms of village life. To capture such close-up and personal images, he spent time walking alongside the locals, engaging in conversations, and quietly observing their daily routines. His photographs captured on the mountains reveal tender and unguarded moments of children smiling into the camera, standing beside their pets, carrying younger siblings, or women carrying large bundles of vegetables on their backs. These scenes evoke a profound sense of nostalgia, a glimpse into a way of life deeply connected to nature. Perhaps, the nostalgia arises from the rarity of honest and genuine human interactions today, creating a sense of timelessness in these portraits that feels both fleeting and enduring.

Developing a long-term documentary project requires a deep commitment, especially when a photographer must return to the same place over time. When asked about how to sustain such a process, Bạch Nam Hải reflects on it from both professional and personal standpoints. Beyond his skills as a professional photographer, he emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning and staying engaged with a community of fellow photographers. He believes the world is full of fascinating moments unfolding every day, but only a few stories we are fortunate enough to encounter, and even fewer carry the weight and message of their time, deserving to be told and shared more widely. For him, it’s about following instinct and documenting reality through the language of photography.

“I noticed that most of the ethnic minority locals mainly move around on foot, so I also made a habit of walking. I wandered everywhere, from the town center deep into the villages. Along the way, I would initiate conversations with the locals, picking up a few phrases in H’Mông and Red Dao languages to chat. Many conversations actually began when street vendors approached me to sell souvenirs. I would gently decline, then casually chat with them — just like how strangers sitting next to each other on a train or bus, end up talking about everything in life,” Bạch Nam Hải told Saigoneer in Vietnamese.

The documentary photo series highlights the ongoing tension between Sapa’s traditional local lifestyle and the rapid expansion of tourism and large-scale investment. Yet, there exists a tender intimacy: moments of daily life, human interactions, and portraits of locals that offer a human counterpoint to the larger narrative of change. The innocent eyes of the mountain children, captured in Hải’s photographs, evoke a sense of happiness at the moment. But as the viewer lingers and places these images within the broader context of Sapa’s rapid development, a subtle sense of concern about the future of this land begins to surface: how can urbanization and economic growth align with the preservation of culture and nature? And more urgently, how can sustainable tourism evolve in ways that genuinely improve the lives of local communities?

More information on Bạch Nam Hải’s “MOUNTAINS OF CHANGE” and his book on the photo series can be found on this website.

The Grotesque Food on AI Slop Signs Ushers in the Age of Flattened Human Experience

2026-11-01T10:00:00+07:00

The AI slop has arrived, our streets conquered by vibrant, same-same cartoon faces with goofy grins slapped atop gradient-drenched backgrounds, every inch of space smeared with colorful activity that distracts from wonky details: clocks with nonsensical numerals, bánh mì with reptile skin, and passion fruit oozing juice from sinkhole centers.

When you step onto Saigon sidewalks, a blitz of activity bombards your senses and splinters your attention, so you might not pay much notice to individual signage. But if you look closely, you’ll detect AI everywhere. From street carts to chain-store window posters, advertisements reliant on the technology have transformed the look and feel of Vietnam’s urban environments over the past months. The change is subtle because it takes place within an already cluttered visual landscape that, since the early 2000s, has expanded on a maximalist attitude which professes that more and bigger is best in a competitive ecosystem.

The adoption of AI in Vietnamese advertising shouldn’t surprise anyone. The country is more accommodating of the technology than regional peers, with 78% of businesses using it alongside high rates of personal use led by Gen Z, who ping chatbots to work, study, relax, and receive advice. While strict laws surround disinformation and scams, which are intertwined with AI, the government is also supportive of its potential to empower industry and economies, even using it for its own campaigns and media. The leap from Gemini inquiries to cyber-meat monstrosities on the side of a bún bò cart is infinitesimal.

Bottom-line costs, as opposed to aesthetic preferences, are surely why proprietors employ AI instead of a graphic designer or sign-painter. Friends and co-workers assure me we can not assume they make the same corner-cutting decisions when sourcing ingredients and materials or hiring workers. It feels cruel to levy our scorn at humble vendors who are unaware of the ethical concerns and political machinations that fill think pieces. But who, then, is to blame for all creativity-deficient crud on our city streets? And what can we do about it?

The unsatisfying answers may lead to the tech oligarchs described by author Arundhati Roy as “a single head and a single pale, unblinking eye set into its forehead, way to the right of centre, which casts its jaundiced gaze on ordinary humans and sees only what miners see in a mineral-rich forest, or what dam builders see in mighty, flowing rivers. A resource to be extracted, accumulated and put on the market. Fuck the forest. Fuck the river. Fuck the human.”

Some witnesses to the slop sludging up Saigon’s streets will claim it’s no different than Vietnam’s decades of pirating images and that the issue isn’t the reliance on AI, but the lazy use of it. Citing the limitless potential of AI to create images and even host lame web series, they will note that if visuals look bad or strange, it's because the creators aren’t skilled or diligent in how they craft prompts. And it might all be moot, anyways, as the most egregious errors in textures, patterns and interpretations are attributed to older models. In a few months, one probably won’t be able to tell what’s AI and what isn’t. At best, it all makes one even more nostalgic for the errors, idiosyncrasies and imperfections of handmade signs.

Ultimately, AI signage in Vietnam merely serves as a loud example of a wide-reaching issue of the modern age. Like the visual trends preceding it, AI is washing out creativity and flattening the diversity of human experiences. Spit out by the same source-trawling algorithms that churn out trends, the signs all look the same, whether in Saigon, Boston, Caracas, or Belgrade. The phenomenon applies to cafes that all feel like Apple Stores and music videos with indistinguishable choreography styles. If you take a thousand of the most magnificently plummaged jungle birds and throw them in a blender, you’ll get a monochrome slop of brown sludge — never mind you’ve lost the birds’ songs too, beautiful mistakes and all.

A Eulogy for My Childhood Along Saigon's Xuyên Tâm Canal Amid Its Cleanup

2026-11-01T07:00:00+07:00

Along the busy Điện Biên Phủ Street that travels through the former districts 1, 3, 10 and Bình Thạnh is Hẻm 27, located almost next to Trường Sa Street along the Nhiêu Lộc Canal.

Entering Hẻm 27 feels like arriving at a typical, laid-back residential area of Saigon. You will notice two- or three-storied houses, a tiệm tạp hóa every 10 steps you take, and of course, delicious eateries packed with locals. But as you travel deeper, it gradually becomes narrower, with houses starting to look smaller and less well-built than those at the alley’s entrance. You start to notice even narrower alleys along the way; these smaller hẻms contain even smaller houses. There, you can catch glimpses of the ordinary lives of the people: light flickering from dangling lightbulbs, uncles smoking on scooters parked out front, aunties spreading out on the floors making food, most likely to sell as their livelihoods, and if you go down these narrower hẻms, eventually you would reach a channel called Xuyên Tâm.

Views of Xuyên Tâm Canal. Photo via Đầu tư.

Rạch Xuyên Tâm is a tributary of the Nhiêu Lộc canal, flowing through Bình Thạnh and Gò Vấp and ending at the Vàm Thuật River. For over 50 years, the banks of Xuyên Tâm have been the lifeline for thousands of low-income working-class families, including my own. We have relied on the channel to build our lives in a city that has become increasingly expensive. As of May 2026, hundreds of these families have moved elsewhere; many more will follow, as part of the city’s cleanup efforts and infrastructure improvements.

A theory on how this neighborhood came to be

As a city built with and upon a large network of rivers, canals, and channels, many aspects of life here go hand in hand with bodies of water. For a long time, local waterways have been used as means of transportation, creating a culture of economic activities right on their banks and surfaces. Many markets and neighborhoods have formed near the water. One such neighborhood grew alongside the Đôi channel in former District 8; District 7 houses the Tẻ canal neighborhood; and in Bình Thạnh, in addition to the one along Xuyên Tâm canal, there is a similar neighborhood in Văn Thánh.

My mother in the first home my parents built

For as long as I can remember, Xuyên Tâm has felt well-established. I suspect people were first drawn here for the same reasons people have always settled near bodies of water. The channel itself is less than one kilometer from Bà Chiểu Market; schools, supermarkets, churches, and pagodas are all within two to three kilometers. Furthermore, the area is adjacent to former District 1, Gò Vấp, and District 2. This proximity to so many other populated, developed neighborhoods creates abundant work opportunities while supporting a generally low cost of living. Many of the families who lived here were blue-collar workers with limited education who relied on that proximity to neighboring areas for work.

Before moving away due to the city’s cleanup efforts, my family had a long history living in the Xuyên Tâm channel neighborhood. It all started when my grandmother fled her hometown in the Mekong Delta during the war against the French and settled in Saigon, where she met my grandfather. Like many children born during the 1960s, my mother grew up in a family with more than 10 siblings and had few opportunities for a formal education. In the early 1980s, when she met my father, she was a single mother with two children, but my father pursued my mother and they eventually decided to start living together and work to provide for the children and each other. Then came my older brother and me.

The view from our kitchen window overlooking the canal. During low tide, not much water is visible.

My mother often told the story of how our old home came to be. “It was a pigsty,” she would say about the plot of land when she bought it. At first, they could only afford to make a house with old wood planks and metal sheets for the roof. My older sister and brother once told me how, when they were little, tides from the channel would rise and flood the house, and how they would enthusiastically and innocently splash around in the water while my mom frantically stacked things in the house up high. In the early 2000s, a few years after I was born, my father’s work finally started to look up and my family was able to renovate the house from wood planks to brick and cement. For more than 30 years, that humble home was my mother’s pride and joy. Thanks to her tremendous effort to build something out of nothing, it was where my siblings and I grew up, with all the glories of childhood, bad days included.

Growing up near Rạch Xuyên Tâm

The narrow alleyway leading to the our home.

Neighborhoods like Xuyên Tâm are quite distinctive compared to other Saigon residential quarters. They have existed alongside other popular areas like Chợ Lớn or downtown Saigon but their existence has mostly been obscure. You can’t find neighborhoods like Xuyên Tâm on Traveloka or Booking.com, even to some residents of Saigon, these neighborhoods are unfamiliar.

One thing I noticed growing up here was how the houses seem to be built on the essential need to put a roof over a family's heads, in the spirit of working with whatever little resource one might have. The houses were not constructed by architects or engineers, but men with some construction experience. Therefore, they serve the most basic and important function of a house, which is to shelter, and anything else is a bonus. The houses are often built packed together, in some cases sharing the same wall, leaving little to no space for ventilation or escape routes. This becomes more and more obvious amongst the houses further down the alleys.

Because of all of these factors, fire was always a looming concern. Each month, on days when it’s customary for households to burn votive papers as offerings for dead relatives, neighbors would remind each other to pay attention to the smell of burning or smoke. On such occasions, everyone in my alley would stop whatever they were doing and go ask around until they found the source of the smell and were sure that everything was under control. Most houses also didn’t have a proper waste disposal system and no septic tanks, meaning that all the household liquid waste got flushed directly into the canal water. Most families would pay for trash pick-up to handle their solid waste, but some just treated the canal like their personal trash chute.

Those living along the canal are not always concerned with keeping it clean. Photo via Đầu tư.

Our Xuyên Tâm neighbors

The people of Xuyên Tâm canal are a mix of those whose families had lived there since its early days, and those who came to live there over time. Many are diligent workers, often making their living through street food carts or stalls, and small home businesses like tạp hóa or tailoring services. Among those who make an honest living are others who were stuck in bad gambling and drug habits. Growing up surrounded by people whose career was selling food, I started to notice how labor-intensive the work is, especially when they are not professionally trained or do they own any proper kitchenware. The dishes that they sell are often noodles or desserts such as chè that include many components, which are mostly homemade. For this reason, they spend the majority of their days cooking. In my old alley, the atmosphere would be lively as early as 2–3am as people got up to prepare food to sell breakfast. The people here are hard-working, simple folks.

My mother and aunts making bánh tằm at home, a common scene among many households in the neighborhood. Bánh tằm is a type of rice noodles used as the main ingredient for bánh tằm bì, a Mekong Delta specialty.

They work long hours to survive and take care of their families, but they can be inconsiderate at times. Their idea of entertainment and leisure often includes drinking parties with blasting music or karaoke without concern for the whole neighborhood that has to hear it. Their idea of conflict resolution between neighbors often resembles the way Vietnamese parents cut fruits for their kids after smacking them instead of talking and saying sorry. Two neighbors could cuss each other out one day and yet, weeks later, one would help the other with parking, going back to talking as if the quarrel had never happened. One time, my mother agreed to let the neighbor next door use our house’s right wall as their own when they built their house. While this was a gesture of kindness, it resulted in multiple incidents when the neighbor's son got drunk and slammed our wall to harass us. The sense of community was always present here, but at times it could feel toxic and thoughtless.

Despite all of that, I would not describe my childhood as anything but fulfilling. As a child, I never felt the troubles of the adults here, and the neighborhood didn’t have a negative effect on me, despite seeing and hearing many fights and incidents. I was fortunate enough to live most of my life in the brick house my parents renovated, which was much sturdier than the one made from plain wood planks that preceded it. In my memory, childhood was the days spent in the care of my parents, going to school on weekdays and church on the weekends, having friends, community, warm meals, and play. For that, I have the Xuyên Tâm canal to thank, as it provided the stability that was foundational to a childhood I enjoyed. It allowed me to stay in one place and thus have set down roots and feel grounded while developing my sense of self and building relationships. I realize now how much the time living here has shaped who I am today. My special bonds with it that were not always apparent before. As this realization arrived, so did the final days of the Xuyên Tâm canal.

Happy moments during birthday celebrations in the home after it was renovated.

A new beginning for the canal and for us

In the months leading up to the day when our family would be moving to our new home, I watched the houses around mine being torn down. As I saw the scenery I grew up in gradually disappearing, reduced to bricks and dust, I was filled with conflicting emotions of hopelessness and hopefulness.

I was sad to see the excavators tearing down house after house, knowing that soon, my very own house would suffer the same fate. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of hopelessness amidst everything. I was hopeless to think of one day when the house that has sheltered our joys and sorrows for so long would no longer exist. The presence of the house and the place were physical evidence to all the hardships of my family and all the turmoil of growing up there. Once the scenes are gone, what would be left of our history? I have come to terms with the fact that it would only exist in our memory from now on. And each time I felt down, I reminded myself that this was for the best, that our family had emerged from this ordeal with the best outcome possible.

My mother with a neighbor's child in front of our former home.

I was also hopeful when thinking of our new place to live, an apartment located in a nearby building that my family was eligible to buy at a discounted price, because we were losing our only house. I was hopeful that we would have a stable place without having to go into debt to the bank for it. But above all, I was hopeful about my mother finally being able to own a place of her own, with legal papers acknowledging her ownership, an achievement after decades of her hard work and never spending anything more than the bare necessities. In addition to my family, I was happy to think of the Xuyên Tâm canal being cleaned and its environment improved; it will no longer be a dumpster for household waste, and soon, it will be a neater and nicer place where the community can enjoy themselves.

Soon, the Xuyên Tâm canal will be given a new identity. After the cleanup, there will be no more shabby houses. It will become legitimate, and the real estate price will inevitably skyrocket. People will consider it more “civilized,” but it will never again be a place for those with nothing looking to build something from scratch in Saigon.

Photos courtesy of Ngọc Hân.

Feeling Peckish at the End of the Work Day? Have a Bánh Chiên, or Two, or Four.

2026-10-30T09:00:00+07:00

The rainy season is upon us in Saigon. Bouts of rain from ferocious to gentle have helped tempered the searing heat of summer. At one corner of the city, amid the moisture of freshly rained-on atmosphere is the bittersweet caramel scent of sugar syrup bubbling on the stove and of fried dough. It fills me with both nostalgia and a craving for golden, crispy bánh chiên hidden at every market and alley across Saigon.

Bánh chiên literally means fried dough in Vietnamese, referring to a genre of pastry that comes in so many shapes and flavors. Today’s bánh chiên carts are adorned with flashy signage and even twinkling LED lights, but when I was young, they merely consisted of an aluminum trunk with wheels beneath so vendors could take their pastry on the road. Above the counter is an oil wok that’s never not boiling, while a glass display sits in front, showcasing steaming pastry that’s freshly fried.

The fragrance of oil and dough emanates from bánh chiên carts.

Even from afar, you can immediately smell the rich scent of fried food without actually seeing the carts. When you arrive, your eyesight will be greeted with a luxurious platter of puffy pastry arranged in neat rows. It’s very hard to walk by without stopping to grab at least a couple of bánh bò-bánh tiêu sandwiches, or a bánh cam to satisfy the craving.

It’s hard to walk by without grabbing something.

Bánh cam and bánh còng

I distinctly remember a time in Saigon when bánh cam vendors could pass for street acrobats thanks to their towering tray of bánh cam and bánh còng piling atop one another like giant hats. I’ve never seen them drop any while moving about on really cluttered streets.

Who wants a bánh cam or bánh còng?

To show appreciation for their intricate balancing act and sympathy for their hard work, my mother always bought a few bánh cam to help out. One for her, the rest for us. My love for bánh cam was kindled from then on.

Bánh cam is named after orange in Vietnamese, because it resembles a small fruit. Each bánh cam is spherical, covered in a shimmering layer of amber sugar syrup and white sesame seeds. Bánh còng gets its name from the shape which resembles a handcuff. Bánh cam and bánh còng often go together, though the former also comes with a mung bean filling.

Bánh cam and bánh còng with sugar glaze.

Before the first bite, I like to hold the bánh cam up and give it a little shake, just to hear the nub of filling collide with the crispy skin. Upon chewing, you’ll get a little taste of the sticky rice dough mixed with the sweet, salty, and nutty filling.

Bánh tiêu and bánh bò

While bánh cam can easily draw both children and adults in with its sweet shiny glaze, bánh tiêu, on the other hand, is much more rustic.

A traditional and pandan version of bánh tiêu.

Traditionally, bánh tiêu is not a sweet dish, mainly made of wheat flour with toasted sesame seeds. The dough is fried in oil until puffy and golden, for a simple and straightforward greasy treat.

Deep-fried bánh tiêu

I will always remember the weekends and summer days without school when mom would take me along during her market visits. The trips would end with heavy bags of produce, but to make it up to me, she would reward me with a bánh tiêu from the market corner.

The pastry is undoubtedly greasy, but very irresistible.

Bánh tiêu might look plump and round, but the inside is empty, so people often pair it with a jiggly chunk of white or green bánh bò as the filling. It’s a match made in sweet heaven as their tastes compliment each other: the oily fried dough is anchored by the soft, light texture of bánh bò. Just one pair of bánh bò tiêu is enough to make anyone feel full.

Modern bánh tiêu is upgraded with ice cream like durian or taro.

Giò cháo quẩy and other crispy fried treats

Apart from circular and spherical pastries, the picture is incomplete without pairs of sausage-shaped dough called giò cháo quẩy. These originate from Hoa Vietnamese communities, but have been adapted to Saigoneers’ palates.

Giò cháo quẩy and drumstick donuts

As a morning snack, giò cháo quẩy is paired with hot drinks like bạc xỉu and milk coffee. Tear off a small chunk of dough, dunk it in the glass, and enjoy how that woodsy, bitter liquid perfectly balances out the greasiness of the fried dough. Elsewhere, in a savory context, bite-sized quẩy pieces are served alongside porridge and bánh canh. The dough will soak up the flavorful broth and burst in your mouth with every bite.

Of course, any fried food discourse can’t leave out the crispy presence of banana fritters. Small local banana cultivars like chuối sứ are rolled thinly, coated in flour, and then double-fried to produce a golden shell and moist, caramelly banana filling. Not to mention the quirkily named and shaped bánh đùi gà — chicken drumstick donut — that’s both sweet and chewy and smells of toasted sesame.

Fried bánh bao

A more adult offering would be fried bánh bao. A typical bao is soft and white, cooked in a steamer, while the fried version is amber-colored and crunchier, though the mince and quail egg filling is the same across versions.

Saigon’s bánh chiên arts are always a sumptuous feast that can satisfy any palate. Bánh chiên is a rustic treat for the people, a nostalgic snack that not only helps connect eaters with their childhood, but also satiate late-afternoon cravings.

Golden fried dough is never not alluring.

How Saigon's Lăng Cha Cả Went From Mausoleum to Roundabout

2026-10-30T08:00:00+07:00

If you’re just off the plane and heading west into the city, it’s hard to avoid the busy six-way Lăng Cha Cả intersection south of Hồ Chí Minh City’s Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport. But it’s even harder to believe that this was once the site of a national monument: the grand mausoleum of Bishop Pigneau de Béhaine — best known in Vietnam as Giám mục Bá Đa Lộc (Cha Cả).

Top image: the mausoleum in 1966. Photo by Alan Beckler via Tuổi Trẻ.

A portrait of Pigneau de Béhaine, painted by Maupérin during his 1787 trip to Paris with Crown Prince Cảnh, on display at the Paris Foreign Missions Society

Monsignor Pierre Joseph Georges Pigneau de Béhaine (1741–1799) first came to Vietnam as a missionary with the Paris Foreign Missions Society in the late 1760s. In around 1775, he set up a seminary on the island of Phú Quốc. It was there that he mastered both Chinese and Vietnamese and worked with Vietnamese colleagues to compile the Dictionarium Anamitico-Latinum (Vietnamese-Latin Dictionary, 1772) before his elevation to the post of Bishop of Adran and Apostolic Vicar of Cochinchina in 1774.

In 1777, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (later King Gia Long) arrived on the island and sought protection at Pigneau’s seminary. The sole survivor of the Đàng Trong (Huế) royal family, which had been massacred by the Tây Sơn, he was offered shelter by Pigneau and the two men quickly became close friends.

Pigneau subsequently pledged his support for the Nguyễn cause, and over the next 15 years he became Ánh’s close confidant and indefatigable champion in the war against the Tây Sơn, procuring munitions and other military supplies for his armed forces.

A portrait of Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh at 7, painted by Maupérin during the prince’s 1787 trip to Paris with Pigneau, on display at the Paris Foreign Missions Society

In February 1787, Pigneau left for France, taking with him Nguyễn Phúc Ánh’s young son and heir, Prince Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh. By the terms of the subsequent Treaty of Versailles, signed on November 21, 1787, the court of Louis XVI promised military support for Nguyễn Phúc Ánh in exchange for economic and territorial concessions in Vietnam. However, due to the subsequent political situation in France, the Treaty was never implemented and Pigneau was obliged instead to use funds he had raised in France to recruit a force of mercenaries.

By the time Pigneau arrived back in Vietnam in 1789, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh had retaken his old base at Gia Định. The team of French officers Pigneau had enlisted brought with them state-of-the-art weaponry and helped to train Ánh’s troops in modern infantry tactics and the use of heavy artillery. A naval workshop was set up in Bến Nghé (Saigon) to assemble a fleet of modern warships and a series of major fortifications was built, including the massive 1790 Gia Định Citadel, which became the temporary Nguyễn royal capital. In the 1790s, these military reforms enabled Ánh to launch a series of successful campaigns against Tây Sơn bases in the south-central region, paving the way for his final victory in 1801.

During the 1790s, as Nguyễn Phúc Ánh took the fight back to the Tây Sơn, Pigneau de Béhaine served as advisor at his court in Gia Định and tutor to his son Prince Cảnh.

The Dinh Tân Xá at the Archbishop’s Palace.

Writing in the 1880s, Pétrus Ký gave a fascinating account of the life and death of Pigneau de Béhaine: “Following his return from France, the Bishop of Adran lived in Saigon, in a house called the Dinh Tân Xá which Nguyễn Phúc Ánh had built for him at the outer corner of the citadel, at the spot where the gunpowder magazine is now situated [now the site of the HCMC History Museum]. The Christians of Thị Nghè also had their church close by, on the edge of the Arroyo de l’Avalanche [Thị Nghè Creek], in the parish of Tân Sơn, now the location of the bishop’s tomb.”

During this period, in addition to tutoring the young Crown Prince Cảnh, Pigneau also accompanied him on several military campaigns against the Tây Sơn, including the defence of Diên Khánh in 1794.

And it was on one of these campaigns, the seige of Quy Nhơn of 1799, that “after thirty-three years of a very rough and laborious life,” the bishop succumbed to acute dysentery.

The main gate of Diên Khánh Citadel in Khánh Hòa province where Pigneau died.

“Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, driven by a genuine affection for the prelate who had rendered to him such eminent services, sent his best doctors and employed every possible means to conserve his life. Prince Cảnh came every day to visit his master, and Ánh himself came several times to see his benefactor, despite his concerns about the ongoing siege of Quy Nhơn, from which he tore himself away out of a sense of gratitude.”

Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine died on October 9, 1799, “in the arms of M. Lelabousse, a missionary who had accompanied him.” Having received the sad news, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent “a beautiful coffin, together with silk for wrapping the body.”

In 1925, one scholar cited an inscription at the Lăng Ngọc Hội, 8 kilometers from Nha Trang, which suggested that Pigneau was actually laid to rest there rather than in Gia Định. However, other French sources make no mention of this. According to Pétrus Ký, on October 10, 1799, Crown Prince Cảnh accompanied the corpse as it was placed on one of the Nguyễn ships and returned to Gia Định for burial.

Arriving in Gia Định on October 16, Pigneau’s body was placed in the Dinh Tân Xá, where it lay in state for a month. Crown Prince Cảnh “considered himself as a disciple and eldest son of his master the prelate, for whom he was in deep mourning.” Cảnh had a special temporary palace built opposite the bishop’s house and stayed there day and night, receiving many mandarins who came from all parts of the kingdom “to render illustrious funeral honors to the deceased.”

Nguyễn Phúc Ánh’s funeral elegy was transcribed onto embroidered silk.

A French architect named Barthélemy was commissioned to build a Nguyễn Dynasty-style mausoleum in Tân Sơn Village, while Crown Prince Cảnh was entrusted with the detailed arrangements for the funeral ceremony. Despite the ongoing campaign in Quy Nhơn, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh himself made time to sail south to Gia Định to attend Pigneau’s funeral on December 16, 1799.

Pétrus Ký describes how the procession from the Dinh Tân Xá to the newly-built mausoleum set off at around 2am on December 16, 1799, led by Prince Cảnh.

“A large cross, formed from artfully-arranged lanterns, was carried at the head of the procession, followed by a series of elaborately carved red and gold portable shrines, each held aloft on an ornate dais and carried by four men.” The first housed a stele bearing the characters 皇天主宰 (Huáng tiān zhǔ zǎi or Hoàng thiên chúa tể, meaning “Sovereign Lord of Heaven”) in gold lettering. The second contained an image of St. Paul and the third an image of St. Peter, patron of the Bishop of Adran. The fourth contained an image of the guardian angel and the fifth an image of the Blessed Virgin.

Then came a great standard measuring some 15 feet in length and made from damask, on which were embroidered in gold letters the titles conferred on the Bishop of Adran by the King of France and the Lord of Đàng Trong [Nguyễn Phúc Ánh], as well as those of his episcopal office.

After this came a litter housing the insignia of the prelate, his cross and his miter, which was carried directly in front of the hearse.

A 1960s photograph of the mausoleum shrine with its embossed coat of arms of the bishop.

On either side of these shrines and litters walked “a large number of Christian young people and clergy from every church in Cochinchina.”

The hearse carrying the body of the bishop was “a beautiful litter of about 20 feet in length, carried by 80 picked men, and covered by an embroidered gold canopy.” On it was placed “the magnificent coffin….. covered with beautiful damask, set in a frame and surrounded by 25 large lit candles.”

Nguyễn Phúc Ánh’s royal guard, comprising more than 12,000 men, was arranged in two lines, with field guns at the head of each line. “One hundred and twenty war elephants with their escorts and mahouts walked on both sides. Drums, trumpets and both Annamite and Cambodian military music accompanied the mournful march, which was lit by a prodigious number of candles and torches and more than 2,000 lanterns of different shapes. At least 40,000 men, both Christians and pagans, followed the convoy.”

Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was present, along with his mother, his sister, his queen, his children, all the ladies of the court and the mandarins of different government departments. “All wanted to express their regret at the eminent and distinguished prelate who was no more, following his remains to the grave which had been prepared to receive him.”

The Pigneau de Béhaine mausoleum pictured in 1867.

Arriving at the grave, a missionary named Father Liot performed the ceremonies of the Catholic liturgy. Once the Christian burial ceremony was finished, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh stepped forward and gave a tearful funeral elegy which he is said to have composed himself. This elegy had been transcribed onto embroidered silk and was “presented to the late bishop in the form of a posthumous diploma.”

Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh’s elegy recounted Pigneau’s efforts to obtain official French military assistance from Louis XVI and explained how, despite being “met with adverse conditions midway through his endeavours,” he had gone on to “marvelously save the situation with his extraordinary plans.”

It described Pigneau as “a precious friend, whose character fitted so well with mine… the intimate confidant of my most secret thoughts… who came to my kingdom and never left me, even when fortune eluded me […] We were such friends and so familiar together that when my business called me out of my palace, our two horses walked abreast. We never had anything but the same heart.”

“After the funeral oration, the clergy and the Christians withdrew, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, alone with his mandarins, offered the sacrifices they were accustomed to make for souls of the deceased. Then Prince Cảnh and royal ministers each read out their own eulogies.”

Writing in 1884, Charles Lemire also mentioned the “curious details” of Pigneau’s funeral as recounted by an eyewitness named Father Bouillevaux, who gives us a detailed description of the mausoleum constructed over the tomb.

An image of the mausoleum from Charles Lemire’s 1884 book L’Indo-Chine, Cochinchine Française, Royaume de Cambodge, Royaume d’Annam et Tonkin.

Known locally as Lăng Cha Cả, the mausoleum in which Pigneau de Béhaine was buried was located in a large rural clearing near Tân Sơn village. Designed in the Nguyễn dynasty style, it was supported by a frame of precious wood and topped by a traditional yin-yang tiled roof. In front of the building stood a large screen (bình phong).

Inside the mausoleum, behind a kowtowing hall (bái đường), was the tomb of Pigneau de Béhaine, positioned in the center of the building and featuring a stele inscribed with Chinese characters describing the prelate’s life and work. At the rear of the building was a shrine decorated with “the embossed double coat of arms of the bishop, on whom King Louis XVI had conferred the title of count.”

At the time of the funeral, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh ordered “a guard of honor of 50 men to be posted outside the mausoleum in perpetuity.” While that order may not have been carried out for long, it is said that the mausoleum remained an important place of pilgrimage throughout the pre-colonial era.

After the arrival of the French, Pigneau continued to be honored as a great statesman, thanks to the pivotal role he had played in Franco-Vietnamese relations and the fact that the terms of the abortive Treaty of Versailles had been used in the 1850s as a basis for French claims on Vietnamese territory.

The Pigneau de Béhaine statue which stood in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral from 1902 to 1945.

As early as 1861, Admiral-Governor Léonard Charner declared the Lăng Cha Cả a national heritage site, and in 1902 a statue of Pigneau de Béhaine was installed in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral. The statue depicted Pigneau holding in his right hand the 1787 Treaty of Versailles and with the other hand guiding his student, Crown Prince Cảnh. At that time, the square, previously known simply as Place de la Cathédrale, was renamed Place Pigneau de Béhaine.

This 1968 photograph shows the mausoleum and next to it the main gate of Tân Sơn Nhất Airbase.

The Pigneau de Béhaine statue was removed during the August Revolution of 1945. The present statue of the Virgin Mary, made of Italian granite and created by sculptor G. Ciocchetti, was installed in February 1959.

During the colonial period, a cemetery for French Roman Catholic priests was established immediately behind the Lăng Cha Cả.

Towards the end of the French era, urban development began to encroach upon the land surrounding the mausoleum. By the 1960s, as the first American troops arrived, the Lăng Cha Cả was a small compound in the middle of a busy traffic roundabout, right next to the main gate of Tân Sơn Nhất Airbase. However, the South Vietnamese authorities continued to maintain the mausoleum as a national monument right down to 1975.

After reunification, discussions began regarding the repatriation of foreign graves, and in 1983 the mausoleum was earmarked for clearance, along with the old Rue de Massiges cemetery (now Lê Văn Tám Park) and several other French military graveyards.

The urn containing the ashes of Pigneau de Béhaine after they were returned to the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1983.

Pigneau’s remains were exhumed, cremated and then delivered to the French Consul General for repatriation, along with the remains of several other priests who had been buried in the adjacent cemetery. Other graves at the site were cleared away. The mausoleum was then demolished to create a large roundabout. Today this roundabout — still known as Lăng Cha Cả — is one of the city’s busiest intersections. A flyover was installed in 2013.

Bird's-eye view of the mausoleum before and a rendering of the layover in 2013

While the Lăng Cha Cả and the statue of Pigneau de Béhaine have long been consigned to history, the Dinh Tân Xá house which Nguyễn Phúc Ánh built for his friend still stands today in the grounds of the Archbishop’s Palace at 180 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu in District 3. It was dismantled and rebuilt twice, firstly in 1870 in the grounds of the previous bishop’s palace at 6 Rue de l’Évêché [6 Alexandre de Rhodes] and 30 years later at its current location. Still used regularly as a private chapel by the Archbishop and his staff, this historic building was dismantled again in 2013–2014 and reassembled on a raised platform to provide further protection against damp and insects.

Lăng Cha Cả Roundabout in the 2010s.

Tim Doling is the author of the guidebooks Exploring Huế (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2018), Exploring Saigon-Chợ Lớn (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2019) and Exploring Quảng Nam (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2020) and The Railways and Tramways of Việt Nam (White Lotus Press, 2012) For more information about Saigon history, visit his website, historicvietnam.com.

The Shrimps Are to Die for at This Riverside Nhậu Spot on the Outskirts of Saigon

2026-10-29T10:00:00+07:00

“We eat so many shrimps, I got iodine poisoning,” rapper Pimp C famously proclaimed. But how many shrimps would that require, exactly? The internet claims it would require 680 large shrimps for one to suffer iodine poisoning.

Were I going to attempt the consumption of 680 shrimps, I know exactly where I would want to do it: Quán Bến Đò Cây Me along the Đồng Nai River. The humble restaurant extends from the dead-end of a tangle of hẻms, and nearly teeters into a sediment-stained stretch of the unsophisticated river. Barges passing with loads of coal and pilfered sand and errant coils of rusted barbed wire will distract little from the main attraction here: shrimps.

Served steamed with beer, fried with tamarind or salt sauce, in a hot pot, or even raw, the shrimps can be ordered in small, medium, or large varieties at market price. Vegetables and noodles can also be provided for making rolls. Regardless of the particular preparation, it’s the plump, meaty prawns with fibrous antennae and sturdy limbs that I care about. If shrimps have souls, I posit they are located in the sweet, orange goo that oozes from their heads when ripped from their bodies.

You either lust for shrimps or you don’t. But if you do, and you don't feel like catching your own, this restaurant’s ability to bring plate after plate of steaming shrimps to your table without judgement will appeal. The freshness and high quality, a result, in part, of the volume they sell per day, is the main selling point here. But the ramshackle structure where beer cans pile under plastic chairs and flimsy tablecloths bear cigarette burns adds to the charm. There is no illusion of sophistication or expectation for polite table conversation to get in the way of consuming vast quantities of shrimps.

Such high-quality shrimpsare not cheap (VND440,000 per kilo on my visit), which means that on my visit, I unfortunately did not eat enough shrimps to experience the nausea, vomiting, swollen airways, and delirium indicative of iodine poisoning. I feel immense shame for not living up to Pimp C’s standards. However, the silver lining is that I can return to one of Saigon’s best places to consume shrimps.

To sum up:

Opening time: 8am–8:30pm
Parking: Parking is available inside the restaurant
Contact: +84 93 978 99 11
Average cost per person: $$$$ (300 - 400k per person)
Payment: Cash, Transfer

Quán Bến Đò Cây Me

45 Mạc Hiển Tích, Long Bình Ward, HCMC