And back along the lane again
A reworked travel piece I wrote earlier this year on one of Saigon’s most glorious — yet still often overlooked — attractions: its vast network of alleys and side streets.
EACH AND EVERY DAY, THE SCENE OUTSIDE TÂN ĐỊNH CHURCH in Ho Chi Minh City is pretty much the same. A torrent of motorbikes, cars, buses, and trucks pours down Hai Bà Trưng – a major thoroughfare named in honour of two sisters who masterminded a military victory against Chinese forces in 40 BC. Clusters of sweaty Western tourists shuffle into the hallowed grounds of the famously ‘Pink Church’, curious to see the even quirkier ‘strawberries and cream’-coloured interior. On the other side of the road, scores of Asian tourists – many donning conical hats, some wearing áo dài (Vietnam’s traditional silk dress) – pose for pictures with the place of worship in the background. Meanwhile, local Gen Z, some of whom look dressed for a night at the club or an anime cosplay party, take turns snapping photos from the second-floor balcony of a hugely popular coffee chain that has cashed in on communist kitsch (staff dress in casual military clobber and serve drinks in camping cups). Also facing the Pink Church is a svelte-looking eatery that serves Hawaiian dishes like loco moco and ahi poke, and where, later on, a Filipino or flamenco band might be heard playing tunes from the rooftop.
It’s a curious mishmash of cultures, although you might say in essence it’s quintessentially 21st-century Ho Chi Minh City. Whenever I pass by the ‘Big Pink’ (as I like to call it) in the afternoon, I always wonder how many of the tourists flocking to the church are actually Catholic. Even if some are, I doubt they’re there to pray. They, like all the others, are on a more persuasive kind of pilgrimage – the holy trail of Instagram and TikTok check-in spots.
After weaving my way through a crowd of tourists armed with selfie-sticks (or ‘narcissticks’ as the author Mark Bowles urges us to label them), I will duck down a side street to get to another kind of sanctuary, a small cafe called Grandmum, which has a small yard adorned with potted plants and a cosy living room vibe inside. “In the beginning, we weren’t on Google Maps. Only tourists curious enough to explore the alleyways found us. They usually looked surprised – or maybe relieved? – when they stepped inside!” says the owner Lê Đan Nhã Thi, who intentionally gave her cafe a homely vibe with low wooden chairs, stools and tables. Unusually for Ho Chi Minh City, constantly billed by the international media as a dynamic place of business and a mecca for start-ups, there normally isn’t a laptop in sight at Grandmum. People visit to escape the din of the traffic and chat with friends over a ca phe sua da (iced coffee with condensed milk), an egg coffee, or a pourover brewed with imported beans while some unobtrusive jazz or folk tune plays in the background.
Like most Saigonese, Thi grew up in a house down a ‘hem’ (alleyway). She never thought about opening a cafe on the mainstreet: “For starters the rent is too high. But I also feel more comfortable and more secure in a ‘hem’.”
She’s not the only one. Sandwiched in between the city’s main arteries (many of which hark back to French colonial times), there are more than 4,000 hem networks, many of which morphed out of unplanned working class quarters. In each of these alley-based communities, where the majority of the inner city’s population can still be found, you will see locals going about their daily affairs and all manner of neighborhood businesses – family-run noodle joints, stalls selling fresh fruit vegetables, barbers, beauty salons, and sometimes something more random (on a recent walk in the eastern fringes of District 3, I passed a tarot card and witch craft shop).
Whenever I enter a skein of alleys, many of which are too slender for cars to access, the intimate and low key vibe is always a welcome reprieve from the city’s frenetic main streets. Bonus extra: when the sun is high in the sky, the alleys are relatively cool, making them much more appealing to anyone who wishes to navigate the city on foot (or on a bicycle).
“I’m born and raised in Saigon but I still love to explore the back streets and alleyways of my city, and I’m always making new discoveries,” says Nguyen Tung, the founder of NEO, a multi-concept space located in a beautiful 70-year-old modernist building in a back alley of District 3.
“I was just randomly riding around on my motorbike one day when I found this space, which was empty at the time. We basically put the business concept together to fill the rooms!” says Tung of NEO, which hosts pop-up art shows, film screenings, meetups for creative clubs, live music shows, DJs, and more. It’s also got one of the coolest rooftops for sundowners and Tung’s craft beer brand, DEME, produces not one but two of the town’s finest IPAs – the bold, hoppy Ba Hoa IPA (6.2%) is a personal favourite but the citrusy, thirst quenching Hoi Hoi IPa (4.2%) is an ideal session beer for the heat of Saigon. There’s also a funky cafe space on the third floor.
Like Thi, and literally countless other young Vietnamese entrepreneurs in Ho Chi Minh City, Tung never contemplated a main road as a location for NEO: “Honestly, I never enjoy being on a busy main street anyway. For me, the real Saigon is in the backstreets, it’s more chilled, more communal. Everyone looks out for one another.”
Indeed they do. Down a hem (off a hem) in Binh Thanh, a bustling district with dozens of labyrinthine networks of alleyways, the helpful locals know that all (foreigners) who wander are not lost – they’re probably just looking for Vina Groove, Ho Chi Minh City’s premier second hand vinyl record store run by two expats, Steve Hill from Newcastle, England and Francois Babelaere from Dunkirk, France. “The ‘uncles’ and ‘aunts’ in our hem are sound. They will always point people who look a little confused in our direction,” says Steve, after I managed to navigate the backstreets on my bicycle to find the shop, after a couple of wrong turns.
The record store is a niche business, so Steve and Francois figure the location is not a deterrent. “Every now and then we talk about relocating more centrally but the price of rent still makes this the best option and we get vinyl collectors from all over – Australia, Europe, Japan… Kazakhstan,” says Francois. “I think they enjoy it. I mean, finding the shop is part of the experience, right?”
After the customers work their way through a few dozen crates of vinyl records (a fantastic collection of old school gems from the 1950s to early 2000s), they will usually have worked up an appetite. If so, Steve or Francois will duly direct them to a nearby place that serves nem nuong (skewers of minced shrimp meat, grilled and served with rice paper and herbs) or another local spot, where mi vit tiem (duck leg served on egg noodles) is the house specialty.
It’s no exaggeration to say that every exploration of the city’s side streets and alleyways leads you past countless eateries making mouthwatering food. For those seeking inspiration, the online magazine Saigoneer has a ‘Hem Gem’ column with close to 300 recommendations for local eateries/stalls, all located in the backstreets or alleyways. If in doubt, a visitor can always use the age-old rule of thumb for street food: when an eatery’s packed with happy looking locals, it’s bound to be excellent. After all, as Anthony Bourdain once declared: “You don’t have to find great food in Vietnam. Great food finds you. It’s everywhere.” As are great cafes and great people, too – and what more does anyone need? All you have to do is freely wander. Which begs the question, where to start? The aforementioned Tân Định ward and District 3 are both easily accessible from downtown and filled with characterful alleyways. But honestly you can’t go wrong. Recently I enjoyed an evening stroll from the Ban Co wet market in the western edge of District 3 to Nguyen Thieu Thuat apartments, which were built after houses in the area burned to the ground in the Tet offensive (1968) during the American-Vietnam war. All around the shabby but lively apartment blocks, you will see countless outdoor eateries and get an immediate sense of the Saigonese people’s way of life and their fun loving nature.
After devouring a bowl of bun mam, a delicious noodle soup with seafood, crackling pork and fresh herbs, I got chatting with some Aussie tourists, who were sinking beers and gamely feasting on plates of ‘oc’ (snails, scallops, mussels – basically anything in a shell, usually steamed or grilled). The night before they had taken a city tour in an open-top double decker bus. A relatively new service, the bus has proven popular with tourists looking to traverse the town (yes, often armed with selfie sticks) and do a whirlwind tour of Ho Chi Minh City’s most prominent landmarks – colonial structures such as the Post Office, the Opera House and Notre Dame Cathedral and iconic modern structures such as the 68-floor Bitexco Tower, Landmark 81 and Ba Son Bridge. All the bright lights and ‘must-see’ sights of the big city. “It was alright, I guess,” said one of the Aussies. “But walking through the back streets to come here… now I can say I have been to Saigon, right?”
Exactly right.
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If this great piece doesn’t get people into the hems, nothing will.