In April we will have been here 4 years, and a blog post on the city that we live in is definitely way overdue. Ho Chi Minh City (if you are visiting) or Saigon (if you have lived here for a long time) is by far the largest city that we have lived in to date with a population of almost 9 million people.
(Cape Town = 4.6 million, Rotterdam = 600,000, Vitoria = 400,000, and Perth = 2 million).
Trying to represent the whole city in one blog post is impossible. You could write multiple blog posts just on the different coffee shops in this city! So for this blog post I have picked a few parts of HCMC to focus on, and hopefully it won't be too long before the next blog post on some of the treasures that can be found here.
Part 1: Celebrating Lunar New Year (Tet)
Due to Covid-19, the fireworks displays that would normally accompany the Lunar New Year celebrations have been cancelled. But the city did go ahead with another of the annual traditions: the flower street in District 1. Nguyen Hue is a pedestrian street in the middle of District 1, and for 1 week during the Tet holiday it is transformed into a 750m long garden with flower displays and decorated with the zodiac sign for the year ahead. As we are going into the year of the (Water) Tiger, there were lots of fierce and friendly tigers on display.
Part 2: District 2 (Thao Dien)
District 2 is made up of 11 wards, of which Thao Dien is one of them. This is the ward where we live, and so the one we are most familiar with. What has amazed us is the amount of construction that is ongoing in HCMC. So much has changed just in the 4 years that we have been here, and I am sure will continue to change in the years ahead.
Whenever there is a national holiday, the streets get filled with Vietnamese flags.
It used to be that large parts of Thao Dien (and other low lying parts of the city) would become flooded every time there was a spring high tide. Although lots of work has been done to try and improve the situation, there are still areas that flood when the tide is particularly high.
Some of the new construction includes the metro line (above), which will hopefully become operational in 2023, and huge number of skyscrapers that have been built. The most striking of which is Landmark 81 (below) which is 461m high and currently the tallest building in southeast Asia. It will move into 2nd place later this year when the 679m tall Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is completed.
View of Landmark 81 taken from Thao Dien.
Part 3: Binh Thanh (Truong Sa and Hoang Sa)
Thanks to urban rejuvenation and a concerted effort by the city to clean up this area, what was once referred to as the black river because of the rubbish and pollution floating down it, has now become a popular destination for early morning coffee meet-ups and evening sun-downers.
Some of the coffee shops open before sunrise, and are a great place to meet before starting the day.
Some of the side streets.
A side canal with quite some litter still present, but considerably better than when we first arrived.
Looking down Truong Sa street towards District 1.
Part 4: A selection of shots taken over the last 12 months
The view from our apartment
An old warehouse that has been converted into a brewery and restaurant
The upper part of Nguyen Hue Walking street when it is not being used for the Lunar New Year flower display.
Barges being used to transport containers from the deep water port (below) to the city center (above).
Until next time, Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy Lunar New Year)!
