Today, Saigon’s landmarks are the subject of many an Instagram snapshot – everyone, it seems, has photographed the Notre Dame Cathedral at least once – but in the days before smartphones, Saigon’s grander buildings were featured heavily on the correspondence sent back to Europe by Vietnam’s French colonists.
Thanks to Flickr user manhhai, many of these vintage postcards live on – some black-and-white, some colorized – commemorating an era when Saigon featured more green space and less traffic along with sturdier, low-rise buildings and emptier boulevards. Portraits of the city's Hotel de Ville, Opera House and the regal former Norodom Palace also feature heavily on the cards.
Take a look below:
[Photos via Flickr user manhhai]
