Cramped alleyways thread through the heart of Hanoi’s Old Quarter like arteries, carrying not just people and goods, but also intrigue and fear.
Some of these labyrinthine spaces, ominous and rat-filled, require bravery to enter. Yet once inside, one’s romantic wonder transcends physical boundaries; as a line in a poem by Che Lan Vien reads – “Ngõ rất cụt mà lòng xa thẳm” – which translates as “the alley is narrow, yet our hearts are wide.”
Take a look below (clip to flip for text):
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
This week, Saigoneer is proud to announce a new series: beautifully crafted illustrations, in the form of postcards, celebrating everything we love about this city. Every couple of weeks, we’ll reveal...
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
Hanoi Postcards is our series of love notes to the city we call home. This second offering is of a flower seller cycling along with her florets. With sunlight shining through an audience of trees, her...
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
The third entry in the Hanoi Postcards series, our love notes to the city we call home, depicts a unique neighborhood.
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
The naked truth awaits those who venture beneath Long Bien Bridge…
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
This week’s postcard is based on a real-life event: a sweet, thoughtful gesture that turned distinctly fishy.
Chris Humphrey in Postcards
The fragrance of hoa sữa, or milk flower, is so deeply embedded in the mythology of Hanoi’s autumnal days that singers, poets and authors alike have all sung its praises.
Despite being the world’s second-largest coffee exporter with cafes and vendors filling its streets, Vietnam is rarely recognized for the quality of its coffee. But anyone who has strolled around Saig...
From a small restaurant with only one oven in the basement of Syktyvkar in Russia's far north, Dodo has become the fastest-growing pizza chain in the world. It now has its sights set on Vietnam.
Unripe mangosteen chicken salad has been all over Vietnamese social media during the past few weeks, though we didn’t expect to find it at an upscale hotel dinner buffet. But across from the sushi and...
“When you learn a language, you don’t just learn the language, you learn new attitudes, ways of thinking, culture and history,” explains Aline Nguyen, the Principal of La Petite Ecole Ho Chi M...
The greatest source of stress for foreigners living in Vietnam is often obtaining a work permit. Complicated and frequently changing regulations coupled with long wait times and burdensome paperwork m...
The amount of international schools available in Ho Chi Minh City seems to be outnumbered only by the many acronyms prospective families must memorize to make sense of the differences in curriculum an...
