Long Read
10 Stupidly Cool Things About Ho Chi Minh City Only History Nerds Notice
ho chi minh city smells like roasted duck fat and desperation today - that’s just the normal *Saigon perfume. i’m sweating through my linen shirt like i’m auditioning for a wet t-shirt contest while hunting down colonial sewer grates marked 1860. here’s what my moldy notebook says:
dragons, spies, and secret pasta
save your war museums for tourists - the real gossip’s in the architecture. that ugly-ass Rex Hotel roof bar? CIA spies drank there while plotting how to fail at vietnam war bingo. wander into Cho Lon and find chinese temples with 1873 earthquake cracks hidden under neon karaoke signs. oh, and vietnamese phở? total french colonialism accident - they ran out of baguettes and panicked.
economic voodoo you breathe daily
local job market’s growing faster than mold in district 4’s alleyways - tech salaries hit $1k/month if you kiss enough startup founder rings. rent’s chaos though: $150 gets you a cockroach studio near Bui Vien, $600 buys silence in Thao Dien. true story - 76% of uber drivers here carry fake harvard degrees. found this thread proving it.
"higher-end apartments come with western-style ghosts," my coffee lady whispered while charging me double for cà phê sữa đá. she wasn’t wrong - check these haunted reviews.
survivorship bias the city edition
yeah crossing roads here is playing real-life frogger, but statistically? only 23 traffic deaths per 100k people - lower than atlanta. cyclos and xe om drivers will yell your mom jokes but won’t let you die (probably). handy since phnom penh’s just 6 hours away by bus when you need detox.
overheard at ở đốt bar: "never buy 1945 liberation propaganda posters near ben thanh market - all reprinted last tuesday." track real ones through district 1’s weirdest basement.
final pro-tip: humidity here makes british library manuscripts jealous. pack rice paper to absorb book sweat. and go now - rumors say đường sách* street might bulldoze for another starbucks.
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