Vietnamese, Foreigners, and Chickens. Wandering in Old Saigon

Another day brings another photo walk in amazing Saigon, a city of uniquely diverse urban life including chickens 😀:

That's not suburbs, that's the very heart of the city, District 1.

The chicken might be even #2 pet in Saigon after dogs (corgis and corgi-looking dogs are popular).

You can see many roosters encaged this way:

(Probably, because of cock-fights? I have yet to find out).

And that all contrasts with Bangkok, the city of cats. As for house dogs, the Pomeranians are the most popular there.

Another exotic spectacle: a seller of sugar cane. Loved this huge umbrella and unexpected "palm trees".

Vietnamese wear áo dài only for special occasions or in case they work for some entertaining enterprise like a premium restaurant or tourist company. While the conical rice hat is common in everyday life. (And that's another contrast with Thailand: the Thais don't wear conical hats).

Entering the city center, the heritage of colonial times:

Hotel Continental Saigon (built in 1880).

Wiki states Hunter S. Thompson ❤️ stayed in the hotel in 1975.

And modern Saigon's life scene by the hotel:

A girl with flowers, I call this image.

A poster below reminds us we are in a socialist (by name) country where only the Communist party is allowed:

Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in the bloody bubble above young Ho Chi Minh. An anachronism in the country of wild capitalism with zero freedom of speech.

Foreign visitors from East Asia (supposedly) traveling with Grab app.

Ben Thanh Market, a guard with neat shoes and hair, with a watch. A man of order.

This is the place where they actively work with foreigners.

I mean, crowds of foreigners buy overpriced goods, it's like a milking farm, but, from the point of photography, that's a cool place, a lot.

Once, I saw Indian travelers there who were approached by a young Vietnamese woman (of the very simple type), a street vendor, selling wallets and other small goods. She was slyly saying "You know, this wallet brings luck", and Indian travelers were listening to her with serious faces. 😀

That's the place to return: a piece of socialist realism on the wall and expressive faces of Vietnamese street vendors.

Love wandering in Saigon! Finishing the post, then shower and leaving the hostel to be outside again!

More stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out my previous posts on my personal Pinmapple map.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on May 22, 2024 (and the rooster image a day before that), in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.