Festive Ho Chi Minh City

Last night, while dancing at a stylish club to celebrate our last evening in HCMC, I heard from Philip why he loves this city so much, “Saigon just has magic, it draws you to it and you just can’t leave.” Like many other expats living here, Philip is enjoying the rapid changes and overwhelming modernism that has swept this city. Visiting here again after 6 years, I find that there are hardly any cyclos but double the amount of motorbikes and a lot of cars everywhere. Tall buildings are being erected in city center, featuring a gym, spa and other luxury amenities to a nouveau riche population. Fancy new malls have sprung up in addition to upscale stores scattered all around selling gourmet chocolate, haute couture and expensive jewelry. Countless new cafes and outdoor restaurants offer excellent meals, some of the best I have had in a while in a charming and laid back atmosphere.

The city has become a chic mélange of stylish French architecture and design and Vietnamese traditional life. Sophisticated women in business attire ride on their motorbikes alongside women wearing cone-shaped straw hats carrying baskets on the road. The charm of Vietnam has not been lost in the accelerated development, for example, eating street food at small tables with stools is still very prevalent. I love watching people gathered around those little plastic tables drinking café sua da while they watch the world go by. It is a mini Vietnamese parliament and you can tell they have been sitting at the same corner for years watching the city transform right before their eyes.

With those changes, a great energy can be felt everywhere. This city is just nonstop fun and you feel like you could go on roaming the streets forever. Part of the reason there’s so much energy and enthusiasm has to do with the fact that almost everybody is young with the majority of Vietnam’s population having been born after the war. It’s refreshing to see a major city with so many kids and babies everywhere. They too will soon take part in the great effort to turn HCMC into a modern and successful metropolitan.

It is with such ease that motorbikes navigate the over crowded streets of Ho Chi Minh City bringing you to the door of the office, store or restaurant you are heading to. It is conducive to a great sense of freedom and mobility which I have not felt anywhere else. Unfortunately, it comes at a high cost of pollution which can be felt (and seen) all around. Everybody rides the motorbike with a mask on their faces and gloves on their hands, sometimes they all seem as if they just came out of the O.R.

HCMC – Where Change is All Around You

Good times are rolling in Vietnam and the country is biting more than it can chew at times. I read about the big stores pushing out the small establishments, I hear about people having to move to make way for more resorts in Phu Quoc. I see all the Wi-Fi cafes filling up with expats and tourists like us who prefer to sip coffee in the air-conditioning instead of at a roadside street stand.

Today is our last day in Ho Chi Minh City and as we leave, the city is getting ready for the biggest holiday, Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Streets are decorated with red lanterns and everybody is making plans to go back and be with their family. We too are going back home tonight with tons of new memories and experiences. Festive HCMC has provided the perfect ending to a wonderful trip.

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