Canal Life in Ho Chi Minh City – Who Knew?
When this Jade(d) Empress relocated back to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in 2018, a work colleague advised me to look for a place to rent somewhere along the city's network of canals. But having lived and worked in HCMC as a full-time travel writer (from 2006 to 2010) and spent months here (from 1998 to 2001) as an intrepid backpacker and guidebook researcher, my recollections of city canals were tantamount to the 'stinky black' varieties. (Note, Empresses don’t do, nor live, along stinky black canals.....unless of course, they’re on their last uppers).
In fact, writing about the city for guidebooks years ago, I did touch upon the polluted Saigon River and a network of ‘neglected, stinky black canals,’ which looked a bit like this ......
In fact, when I previously resided around 2008 in Tan Dinh Ward, a buzzy local neighbourhood located in the north-eastern section of the city's District One (the historic central area, with the lion's share of tourist attractions), I vaguely remember that this neighbourhood was bounded in the upper north by a dubious looking canal (which I tried to avoid as far as was possible) which was under massive redevelopment and being widened and transformed.
Anyway, back to 2018: just arrived from Bali, Indonesia, insanely busy with a new job, post-relocation settling back into my former home and piles of red tape bureaucracy, I was under pressure to find somewhere to live, pronto. Luckily, my rental accommodation agent took me early on to a newly-built, serviced apartment block on leafy Truong Sa, which runs parallel to a broad and scenic canal in District Three. Despite living years in Ho Chi Minh City, I wasn't even aware this neighbourhood existed (nor other foreigners, judging by their absence).
My new luxurious, super-stylish third-floor apartment supplied 180-degree, floor-to-ceiling windows and a cute balcony directly overlooking a waterway edged with lawn gardens and trees – a rare green space in this sprawling concrete jungle. So naturally, this Empress signed the rental contract. Well, wouldn't you?
The view from my apartment....
On my doorstep......
Positioned on a bend of the canal facing downtown, this block of just seven apartments must also boast some of the best nighttime views in the city: a panorama of twinkly lights, laser beams and illuminated high-rises, book-ended by Bitexco Financial Tower and Landmark 81 (the latter, in the photo below from a nearer vantage point along the canal, surrounded by the exclusive Vinhomes Central Park, in Binh Thạnh District), which happen to be the city’s two tallest buildings and acclaimed architectural masterpieces. And all lit-up, look jaw-dropping at night.
Conveniently located half-way between the airport and District One, Truong Sa street (or “Trrrrrrruuuuuuuuu-uuuuuuung Saaaaa-aaaaaaaahhhh” if I want to make sure taxi drivers get me home), is also embedded in one of Ho Chi Minh City's most vibrant neighbourhoods.
Both Truong Sa and its counterpart, Hoang Sa, opposite, hug either side of the winding canal, both predominately residential streets, which, along with little shops and service outlets, come lined with wall-to-wall, local-style eateries, makeshift food stalls and atmospheric bars and cafés – an authentic slice of Saigonese street life. And with a continuous pedestrian walkway running right alongside the canal. Not so much the 'stinky black, stagnant' variety, this canal now emits a greenish-gray hue (hey, it's an improvement!) and is regularly maintained, with fish literally jumping out the water (amid the flotsam) and curiously, currents and tides that noticeably ebb and flow ......
Then by chance, I accidentally made an amazing discovery about my neighbourhood: this waterway is, in fact, part of the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal, which, flanked by Truong Sa and Hoang Sa, winds its way for roughly 10km (or 6 miles) from west to east through five HCMC districts – Tan Binh, District Three, Phu Nhuan, Binh Thanh and District One –before disgorging into the Saigon River. And I realised that this is the very same canal that used to border the northern boundaries of my old neighbourhood in Tan Dinh, where I used to live, which, by coincidence, is just a few blocks northeast and which even now, I still frequent.
No wonder I didn't recognise the canal and / or got confused, as I've explained above, it looks completely different! That's because the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal underwent a ground-breaking transformation of its entire length, which extended over two decades; today, widely regarded as a masterstroke in urban design and one of HCMC 's most successful urban redevelopments – nay, even one of Vietnam's greatest!
I recently re-discovered photos (see below), I took of the canal redevelopment, on assignment for an environmental magazine, just before I left Vietnam in 2010 for Indonesia, which I completely forgot about! Now I realise this was obviously along the canal in Tan Dinh neighbourhood, during the latter stages of the waterway transformation, which completed around 2012, as I recognise what are now familiar sights. Again, by coincidence, the photos are of a section which is today the new, tree-lined promenade - edged with frangipani, hibiscus, bamboo plants, etc, where post-2018, back again in HCMC, I do my daily exercise ..... and just along from where I never imagined I would be living a decade later! Ain't life strange!
From the information I've managed to cobble together (NB: disclaimer alert!), let me regale you with the fascinating (hi)story of Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal in all its glory...
Lifting the Dirt on Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal
Back in the 19th century, apparently this waterway was a lustrous, untamed river – described in a poem as 'A stream as white as parchment unfurling into the city’ – that formed what was then known as Saigon’s northern border and under French colonial administration during the Indochina-era, known as Arroyo De L'Avalanche and a strategic waterway.
From around the 1950s, Saigon swelled with migrants looking for work. Finding it difficult to rent or buy a house, they and local impoverished families built stilt homes out of corrugated iron, thatch, cardboard, plastic and anything else they could lay their hands on, on public land beside the river - resulting in sprawling waterfront slums. This river was the resident's only source of water for cooking, washing and bathing, but as there was no functional sewer system, along with rubbish and effluent from neighbouring factories, Saigon’s untreated human waste ended-up in the water. The river’s condition deteriorated so badly, it became known as ‘Kinh Nuoc Den’ or ‘Black Water Canal,' emiting a foul odour.
During the Vietnam War, slums alongside the heavily polluted canal mushroomed in size, with open sewers periodically flooding Saigon’s streets in the rainy season with untreated sewage , causing a sharp rise in water-borne diseases, including typhoid.
Post-Vietnam’s reunification (1976), Saigon was re-named Ho Chi Minh City, but still faced the same old problems. Things got so grim, the HCMC People’s Committee started addressing this public health crisis seriously, making Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal a key urban renovation project. Backed by overseas funding, in the 1990s, plans were devised to regenerate the waterway, including dredging and demolishing the slums. Despite initial efforts however, and then running into some 'financial problems,' the canal still regularly flooded the city with sewage and what not, prompting the launch in 2003 of the massively ambitious, Phase One Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal Restoration Project, backed by the World Bank. This master project to upgrade the entire waterway, allegedly cost more than USD300 million of ODA funding (not to mention, millions the Vietnamese shelled out).
Tonnes of sludge was dredged from the canal and the riverside slums and surrounding dwellings demolished, with around one million local residents (almost 20 percent of HCMC’s population) relocated either to state-subsidised apartments on the city’s fringes, or new public housing apartments along the canal itself. Additionally, to facilitate traffic (and unburden the city’s main thoroughfares), Hoang Sa and Truong Sa streets were constructed on either side of the canal, along with trees and gardens, with reinforced concrete canal walls, plus an extensive network of drains, sewers and wastewater pumping stations. Despite delays and unforeseen circumstances, blah blah blah, Phase One was finally completed and inaugurated in August 2012 (which, I wasn’t around to see or hear about, at that time firmly ensconced on the island of Bali).
Phase II HCMC Environmental Sanitation Project financed by the World Bank started around 2015, primarily focused on rerouting the torrent of untreated wastewater that was apparently flowing from the canal straight into the Saigon River (!) to an enormous wastewater treatment plant on the city’s eastern fringes. As far as I can gather, this is all now completed and up-and-running, but hardly the subject matter a Jade(d) Empress is interested in following-up, dwelling on, or discussing! Let's move on!
Urban makeover at its finest
Once notorious as HCMC’s most polluted and disease-ridden waterway, Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal has been transformed into the loveliest of all of the city's 170 or so canal systems and one of it's most picturesque areas; a prime example of urban landscaping at its most commendable - sheesh, so successful in its transformation, as explained, I didn’t recognise the place! Many other HCMC canal residents are not so lucky as here, still awaiting their own magical redevelopment.
Justifiably, a symbol of urban pride, this massive revamp project has mostly had a huge life changing impact on the project area’s tens of thousands of residents, with vast socio-economic improvements extending to sanitation, housing, wastewater collection and er, wellbeing. Creating this modern concrete catchment area with an extensive new wastewater system has spared HCMC major flooding and canal dwellers millions of dollars in flood damage. Raw wastewater doesn't flood into the Saigon River and overall, relocation efforts have vastly relieved huge population density problems and public health issues.
Nowadays, housing along Truong Sa and Huong Sa consists of stylish new apartment blocks and town houses, mis-matched with impersonal public housing tower blocks and down the labyrinth of razor-thin hems (alleys), box-like modern dwellings packed-in like sardines, but hey, all a vast improvement from before. Some areas, like the visibly 'posher bit' neighbourhood I reside in (well, what did you expect, as an Empress?!), have even developed as highly sought-after real estate, with escalating land and property values.
[I should note there are far scruffier, less maintained sections along the canal than my 'posh bit,' with evident poverty and ongoing social problems, including pockets of derelict land, dilapidated buildings and even a lack of the prettier plants and fixtures in my patch (er, no frangipani trees or Euro-style street lights here). And that 'stinky black canal' photo at the beginning? That’s a small side canal that actually still exists along Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal at the end of my 'posh bit,' obviously, where authorities 'missed a bit.....']
One of the area's main success stories is Truong Sa and Hoang Sa’s meandering banks of landscaped promenades and well-maintained gardens extending for around 10km (six miles) alongside the canal.
These are comprised of grassy lawns and pretty flower beds and shrubberies that feature hibiscus, bird of paradise and bougainvillea, shaded by trees that include exotic bamboo, palm and frangipani..
Accessible right outside my door, this paved walkway / promenade is a complete revelation and joy, as it’s where I and dozens of locals get to exercise for free - with intermittent batches of public gym equipment – in the open-air beside the water and canal breezes. .... fragrant frangipani blooms drop at my feet and all the locals greet me as I pass!!
During the coronavirus pandemic, especially the two partial lockdowns we had one year apart, this canal has been - and still is - an absolute Godsend (ironically bustling most days, packed with local folk ....no social distancing here!). Somewhere right near where we live, where lovely greenery and nature is right on our doorstep.... I can literally roll out of bed to exercise here most days of the week......
Bouncing back from an environmental catastrophe, nowadays the canal is visibly teeming with life – I’ve seen bucket loads of fishes and turtles swimming here. Part of an on-going municipal project, vast stocks of carp, tilapia, catfish and anabas are released into the water, so the fish can nibble on and help reduce the organic sludge that once choked the waterway’s depths.
I’ve even spotted hardy souls kayaking along the canal – although one flip over and they're a goner, as you never know quite what’s lurking below.
But the biggest surprises and indicators of how far this old canal truly has come: I've been spotting stand-up paddle boarders on the water... even more precariously balanced than the kayakers!
Added with the newly-launched, late afternoon cruises, aimed at young foreign expats and tourists; again another huge surprise, sunset cruises with DJs and sundowners venturing along my neighbourhood canal!
No wonder locals look content; many, especially older folk, appreciative while remembering how grim things used to be; nowadays the canal banks are well-frequented as one big free playground and gathering point, especially late afternoons, evenings and weekends.
On opposite sides to the canal, there’s a never-ending run of local-style cafés, eateries, restaurants, beer joints and bars, most of them, open-sided looking directly out onto the tree-lined canal. I’d swear in parts, especially with the more romantic, evocative coffee houses and cafés in my 'posher bit,' the leafy canal riverbanks evoke the ambiance of the Parisian Left Bank, along the Seine River....
....You’ll also find a disproportionate assortment of amaze-balls canal-side pagodas and temples.....
an eclectic bunch, anything from a Khmer Buddhist-sect pagoda-monastery .....
to HCMC's biggest and most important Buddhist learning centre, as detailed in my October 2019 chronicle, "On the Shelf @ Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda" (here) , which, of course you've read
and even road-side mini-shrines ......
Additionally, there's a surprising number of churches, from humble make-shifts with shrines
to resplendent with towering spires.
Anyway, all the local canal-side worshipping sites make their presence known, especially at dusk; with the sombre tolling of Buddhist hanging prayer bells and monk's repetitive chanting at pagodas and surreal peal of church bells calling for service (almost like I'm back in my native England), it all adds up to an amazing cacophony of sounds.
A Day in the Life of ……
Timelines through the day typically mirrors Ho Chi Minh City's unique street life.
At sunrise, an orange glow casts over the water and the canal walkway is an early morning hive of activity and rituals – stretching, strolling, jogging, working the public gym apparatus, dog walking, meditating and more. The local cafés – from no-frills street-side to trendy modern with air-con – are crowded with locals sipping their ca phe sua da’s (iced coffees - a Saigon institution); during weekdays, curiously, mostly men, but at the weekends, families and loved ones. There are too many gorgeous canal-side cafés to mention (some of the loveliest I've ever encountered on my travels): I've already mentioned Cong Ca Phe, but my favourite batch - boutique, artsy, atmospheric little gems, - are located along a section on Hoang Sa, just east of Kieu Bridge (Cau Kieu).
But once the sultry heat kicks-in, the café patrons dwindle down to a few and all the canal neighbourhood’s slide into a sleepy languor, stupefying everything from the resident dogs to the com tam shop owners. For most of the day, apart from makeshift food stalls selling tropical produce from the Mekong Delta, street food and other treats......
yummy dragon fruits (above) and fresh coconuts (below), the latter, great to buy on your way home after exercising.....
.... the streets resemble a bit of a ghost town.
But there’s still enough action on the water, with a succession of working cargo barges and tugboats plying back and forth along the canal, gaining in momentum late afternoon.
Once in a blue moon, you may spot the occasional municipal dredging boats out doing their stuff to service the canal every year or so, in this case, coming to a waterway section near you .........(which they did for a few days).....
And every day, from around 6.30am, small municipal boats regularly head out to clean-up tonnes of rubbish, anything from plastic bags and discarded clothing, to animal bodies and swathes of wild water hyacinth. ......
When the onboard rubbish bins are
full, the boats return laden down to a canal-side refuse station, ready
to be trucked away.
It’s later in the afternoon, from around 4pm onwards, when temperatures start cooling down and similar to the rest of the city, Truong Sa and Huong Sa come alive (unfortunately coinciding with the infernal build-up of motorbike traffic – this is a well-worn commuter’s route through the city. Meh.)
Once again, locals young and old come out en masse along the canal banks; not only to exercise, or walk the dog, but let loose the cockerels, or even bunny rabbits (I kid you not),
or go fishing.......
An army of male anglers, some with family in tow, assemble bait on five hooks and cast their fishing rods out into the canal. Municipal canvas banners strung-up along the promenade railings urge locals not to fish here, attempting to protect the canal's ecological recovery and stocks of fish introduced here. Hard to comply, when you’re hungry, bored or unemployed (often the case here, all three).
Plentiful fish supplies are evident as there are frequent catches; you’d think the fishes would be three-eyed; they’re not, but probably riddled with micro-plastics, toxins - and sludge.
And watch your step walking along the pavement as you might tread on something after someone got lucky (above and below.... yes, this is awful, but it is their culture.....)
Along the canal banks, from around 5pm onwards, you can also catch a decent sunset, especially from one of the low-key rooftop bars or cafes hidden amongst the treetops, or as I do, simply timing my afternoon exercise to coincide with a flaming orange ball sinking into the watery horizon. ......
Come dusk, bats dart around the trees and once the light fades, the garish colours of omnipresent neon lights and fairly lights reflect on the water – along with, if you’re lucky, a luminous full moon rising. And so proceeds the loveliest time of all on the canal, when it looks impossibly pretty, all lit-up and thronged with local folk ...
By now, there's a infectious, almost palpable air of excitement of the evening ahead, as the streets gets increasingly lively. The Saigonese just love to eat out, especially for dinner with their families and friends: on both sides of the canal, streets spring to life, with the open-air cafés, beer joints and eateries, filling-up fast with local patrons and the sounds of men toasting “mot-hai-ba-yo!” (one, two, three, cheers!), gulping beer from glass mugs stacked with ice.
Typically, plastic tables and chairs spill out onto the narrow pavements, illuminated with fairy-lights coiled around gnarly tree trunks. Post-dusk, I can hardly walk along some of the pavements right near where I live (just west of Cong Ly Bridge, or Cau Cong Ly), overrun with friendly locals hunched over - and sharing - bubbling pots of lau ga (chicken hot pot), a beloved speciality here, accompanied by a few cold beers.
to unusual fusion delicacies that extend to local takes on Greek, Cajun and er, Sushi …….
Would I eat here? Probably not, but this minuscule sushi joint looks one of the cutest places to dine. Ever. Eclectic watering holes range from beer joints, that cover no-frills bia hoi Hanoi and Bia Saigon small venues and larger, beer halls serving Singapore's Tiger Beer, to hipster bars, where Vietnamese DJ's spin hip-hop and a dark and dingy reggae bar with Bob Marley tunes blaring out and Che Guevara posters gracing the exterior walls.
Later in the evening, the motorbike madness dies down (well, sort of), replaced with the drunken, out-of-tune wails of karaoke, a muffled chug-chug-chug of motorised craft creating waves in the inky black water and passing of mobile food cart vendors with alarmingly amplified declarations well into the night (is this even legal?), like: BAP XAO! – Saigonese street food of sautéed corn, eggs and dried shrimps, cooked-up on the food cart's stove.
Whatever you do, when you're in HCMC, at some point, get down to tree-lined Truong Sa and Hoang Sa streets to sample the local food, beer, coffee and ambiance - genuine Saigon street life - alongside the water and greenery. There's few foreigners around and the amiable canal residents hardly speak English, but just point and use sign language– how I communicate most of the time.
If you don’t fancy walking the streets and fraternising with the locals, but want to experience the night-time lights and sights - when the canal, like the rest of the city, looks at its most magical - you're in luck. Some tour operators now run small-group dinner cruises or gondola-style boats for two, romantically lit with fairy-lights - a sight I never expected to see from my canal-side living room!
Okay, by now you’re probably in need of a lie-down, or a cup of tea (or stronger), but after a little breather, do please carry on with my next chronicle, featuring some of my neighbourhood's wondrous canal-side pagodas and temples! Simple as clicking on here............
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