March 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: POSTCARDS FROM REAL LIFE
March 2026
Tag: nomad
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THE PARTY DECORATES
So many flags overhead and she’s not looking at any of them. She’s carrying whatever she’s carrying to wherever she’s going and the revolution is just above her. That’s the thing about ideology. The people it claims to represent walk under it every day without even bothering to look up. A conical hat and a bag of recycling beneath a plethora of hammer and sickles. The PARTY decorates. The PEOPLE work. Saigon keeps being SAIGON.
March 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THE MONTH OF MAY IN FOOD
Hidden in an alley off of Do Quang Dau (near Bui Vien), PhinPhin Coffee serves authentic Vietnamese phin drinks like Salt Coffee, Avocado Coffee, and Coconut Coffee – plus smoothie bowls & healthy food. Cozy, vintage vibes in the heart of Saigon. I had a mushroom eggs Benedict for lunch and got a tuna melt to go.
39/7 Do Quang Dau Street, Pham Ngu Lao Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 🇻🇳
74/7 Hai Bà Trưng, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.
224 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai
May 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM: THIS WEEK IN COFFEE, TOWARDS THE END OF MAY
Ca Phe Da at Guta Coffee. Unfortunately, it had sugar in it.
Since I’m leaving soon for a weeklong adventure in Cambodia, I needed to get some repair work done on my backpack. I headed to Bui Vien where a man and woman I’d become familiar with helped sew a patch more securely onto the bag. As I sat there waiting, they offered me tea and sweet potatoes simply because they enjoyed hearing me attempt Vietnamese. By the time the repair was finished, I decided to stay for a cà phê đá and spend the morning dissecting the chaos and rhythm of Bui Vien while reading A Naked Singularity.
Complimentary Sweet Potato just because…
What struck me most wasn’t just their craftsmanship. It was the warmth behind it. Later, after running errands around Ben Thanh Market, I actually returned to give them more business and asked for additional country flags to be sewn onto the bag. Somewhere in that morning, it hit me again how much barriers dissolve when you genuinely try to speak someone’s language. Even badly.
At one point I was sitting there with my book, not even thinking about Wi-Fi, when the man came over and handed me the password without me asking. Little gestures like that rarely happen unless some kind of mutual respect has already been established. In my case, that bridge was built through Vietnamese — however clumsy my Vietnamese still is.
Ca Phe Sua Da, finally without milk and sugar (!) on Bui Vien
An amazing coffee came from a tiny hem tucked away in my neighborhood. Nothing flashy. Just another plastic stool, another strong cà phê sữa đá, and another reminder that sometimes the best coffee spots are the ones you almost walk past.
Then came another hidden alley stand just off Lê Thánh Tôn. Two-for-two this week on thick, excellent cà phê sữa đá. I’m still not comfortable with Vietnamese numbers or my listening skills yet, so I’ve developed this routine where I hold out combinations of 10k and 20k bills and let the vendor pick the correct amount. What’s notable is that nobody takes advantage of it.
One woman corrected me instead.
I held out 42,000 VND for a 22,000 VND coffee and she gently taught me how to say and hear “hai.” I’m convinced that hearing me order in Vietnamese and say “for here” softened the interaction immediately. She realized I wasn’t just another tourist blowing through town trying to bargain people down for already-cheap goods.
That’s another thing I’ve noticed: Vietnamese vendors, especially coffee vendors, are remarkably fair. In a city where tourists constantly negotiate prices downward, the coffee people largely don’t play that game. Twenty-two thousand is twenty-two thousand. And even in the middle of the daily grind, they still manage to be generous.
Trying Vietnamese at any level goes a long way here. It changes the temperature of interactions. Strangers become patient. Sometimes even protective.
Coffee number four was on Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai — lighter than the heavy HIT-style cà phê sữa đá I’ve been chasing lately, but probably exactly what I needed. A small break from the syrupy intensity. I still got the full red plastic stool experience, which honestly matters almost as much as the coffee itself.
Then came coffee number five.
The meanest coffee lady to date. Walking aimlessly around the Pham this morning because it was predicted to rain all day, I didn’t want to venture far. I saw this dark hem where people were lined up against the walls, drinking their coffees. Looked like a fine enough spot. I started with “Chao Bui Xang!” (Good morning!) She replied “What do you want?” in English. I thought that was harsh so I repeated “Chao Bui Xang” with a smile, hoping to warm her up a little bit. Didn’t happen. She just repeated, sternly, “What do you want?” Again, in English. I then continued in my Vietnamese: “Cho toi mot ca phe sua da.” She responded, “Yeah, sit down.” Realizing I’m not going to get anywhere with her. So, I just sat on a red plastic stool and basically had the ca phe sua da equivalent of her sour demeanor. Coffee doesn’t taste good when served to you unkindly. You HAVE TO laugh at this interaction, though. I’m speaking Vietnamese. She’s speaking English. Why?! LOL.
May 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: HIP HOP SWAG
March 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THIS WEEK IN COFFEE
The week started on Đỗ Quang Đẩu, with one of those dark, violent cà phê sữa đá that feels less like a drink and more like a confrontation. In the best way. Slow Sunday morning energy. Motorbikes humming past, metal spoons everywhere tapping against glasses. The kind of coffee that makes you sit still and people watch and read until the sun gets too hot.
Then there was Pages of Passion, tucked into the Nguyễn Văn Tráng building. A bookstore café. Coco Matcha, coconut and matcha somehow balancing each other perfectly – cold, green. Sixth floor cafés in Saigon always feel slightly secret, like you’ve discovered something hidden above the noise.
Bookworm’s Coffee came next. Then another stop on Đỗ Quang Đẩu near Phạm Ngũ Lão. The coffee itself honestly wasn’t great this time. But that almost didn’t matter. Some places thrive on atmosphere alone, shade from the hard morning sun, shelter from sudden rain, the constant theater of street life. Sometimes I stay because the atmosphere feels good around the coffee.
And then the surprise of the week.
I was headed toward an air-conditioned café — when a tiny hẻm café pulled me in, instead. Small. Shaded. Local women sitting and talking like they’re there every day. I stopped for “just one coffee” and ended up reading there instead, realizing the coffee in my hand was far better than the one I’d originally been seeking.
That’s Saigon coffee culture at its best. The city rewards detours.
Even GS25 made the list this week. Self-made iced black coffee in a Korean convenience store on Bùi Thị Xuân, just sitting there and watching the morning happen.
By Friday morning, Hidden Nest on Nguyễn Văn Tráng felt like necessary coconut coffee. The staff weren’t especially cheerful. But the bitterness worked. Not as sweet as Baka Coffee (my favorite one), but maybe that was ok.
This week in coffee was definitely less about finding the “best” cup and more about the feeling surrounding it — heat to shade, tiny alley observations, accidental discoveries, and the strange way Saigon turns coffee into a front-row seat to everyday life.
May 2026
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THIS WEEK IN COFFEE
This week in coffee felt less like hunting for caffeine and more like wandering into tiny human moments scattered around Saigon before the city fully wakes up.
Before 6am one morning, I found a coffee lady tucked into a little hem off Lê Thị Riêng. She was the only one operating for blocks.
A nice dark iced milk coffee. I love that first violent hit of iced milk coffee. 😆 But after days of it, I started craving the cleaner intensity of cà phê đen đá — straight black Vietnamese coffee over ice. There’s a focused kind of energy in it that feels almost medicinal. Sharp. Motivated. Slightly concerning. Probably unhealthy in quantities I’m currently exploring.
One morning I walked out with no destination at all. Just the intention of letting coffee find me. After wandering through streets I’m fairly certain I was never meant to be on, under brutal heat, I ended up at another completely unassuming stand on Bùi Viện.
I ordered in Vietnamese and her entire expression changed. Suddenly there was smiling, correcting my pronunciation of “Bùi Viện” while I filmed, asking if I wanted the coffee in a glass mug instead of takeaway plastic. Yes. Absolutely yes. That tiny gesture somehow said everything. Respect given, respect returned. I love a glass mug!
What struck me this week was how quickly attitudes soften when people realize you are trying — even badly — to meet their culture where it lives instead of demanding it come to you.
I never see any foreigners sitting at these tiny sidewalk coffee stands. They stay inside cafes with air conditioning and playlists curated in Stockholm or Melbourne. Meanwhile, the real pulse of Saigon is sitting six inches above the pavement on a blue plastic chair while scooters scream past your knees.
And honestly? That is the only way I want to experience this city.
Straight Black Coffee
One stand gave me the exact opposite of what I ordered — black coffee arrived sweetened with sugar and no ice. Did I complain? Of course not. I know I’m lucky to even be sitting on a sidewalk in Saigon drinking coffee in the first place.
May 2026
NONTHABURI, THAILAND 🇹🇭: The Buildings Nobody Photographs ~ Thai Shophouses in Nonthaburi
You won’t find these in a guidebook. No walking tours stop here. No pin on any travel blogger’s Google Map.
But if you want to understand how Thailand actually works, look at the shophouses. I personally can’t take my eyes off of them.
The Thai shophouse, or tuk taew (ตึกแถว), is everywhere. Concrete rows, three or four stories tall, narrow frontages, deep footprints. Ground floor is a business. Upper floors are where people sleep. They line every major road in Nonthaburi and most of greater Bangkok, built fast during the economic boom decades of the 1970s through the 1990s, when this country was expanding so quickly that nobody had time to make things pretty. They just needed them to stand up.
The design comes from Chinese immigrant shophouse traditions, adapted through Thai urban planning and poured in concrete. The narrow frontage is intentional. Property taxes and lot prices were historically based on how much street frontage you occupied, so builders went deep instead of wide. Maximum space, minimum tax exposure. Every unit shares a wall with the next. A whole city built on a tax strategy.
I have been living in Nonthaburi for the past few months. I walk these streets every day. And what I keep stopping to photograph is not the temples or the river or the night markets. It is these rows. Because they tell the real story.
Four buildings. Four stages of the same life.
One block got a fresh coat of paint. Green, yellow, red, bright enough to stop traffic. A Korean restaurant on the ground floor. Somebody decided this row still had a future and put money into it. It works. The color is bold and unapologetic against the haze and the power lines and the taxi rolling past. This is a shophouse that got a second act.
A few streets over, a long cream-colored row stretches down the block. Classic mid-boom construction. Still functioning. Shops open on the ground floor, laundry hanging from upper balconies. But the concrete is starting to show its years. Nobody is investing in a facelift here. It is doing its job, and that is enough.
Then there is the block where the old and the new share a wall. On one end, dark water stains running down the facade, tangled wires, a faded sign for a business that probably closed years ago. On the other end, a Cafe Amazon franchise with clean glass and warm lighting. Coral and cream paint, fresh enough to look like a different building entirely. But it is not a different building. It is the same row. One owner gave up and another one moved in. That is how these streets regenerate. Not by tearing down. By filling in.
And then the last stage. Peeling blue trim. Green tarps stretched across openings where awnings used to be. Shuttered shops at street level, metal gates pulled down for good. But look closer. One air conditioning unit is still running on an upper floor. Somebody still lives there. The building is fading, but it is not empty. In Thailand, things do not get abandoned the way they do in other countries. They just get quieter.
I have spent over twenty years documenting street art and urban landscapes in more than forty countries. The thing that always draws me in is not the architecture itself. It is what happens to it over time. The layers. The patching. The moment someone decides to paint their four units bright red while the neighbor keeps theirs bare concrete. That is where the story is.
Thai shophouses were never designed to be looked at. They were designed to be used. But decades of weather, economics, migration, and individual decisions turned them into something worth paying attention to. The arched windows popular in 1980s builds. The balcony railings rusting at different rates depending on which floor gets the most rain. The signs in Thai, Chinese, Korean, sometimes English, stacked on top of each other like geological layers of who did business here and when.
Nonthaburi is not on anybody’s architecture tour. But it should be. Not for the buildings themselves, but for what they show you about how a city actually lives. Not the postcard version. The real one. Concrete, wire, weather, commerce, and time doing what they do.
These are the buildings nobody photographs. So I do.
JAN-MAR2026
NONTHABURI, THAILAND 🇹🇭 GRAFFITI: “HEEHE!” MICHAEL JACKSON
15march26
SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY IN COFFEE
A cà phê sữa đá on a busy median.
Traffic whizzing by, but somehow, sitting on a tiny red stool with sweet coffee in my hand became the only thing I noticed. The coffee lady looked lonely out there in the middle of the chaos — cars, trucks, motorbikes rushing past with no pause, her little cart full of drinks waiting for customers. So I stayed a while. Maybe made her day a little less lonely. Maybe she did the same for me.
On Monday mornings, I wake up before the church bells, before the roosters, and certainly before any coffee ladies. So, on those mornings, I have a canned coffee waiting in the wings of my arsenal (you may call it a mini fridge.)
This brand happens to be deeply tied to the “First Lady of Coffee” in Vietnam, Le Hoang Diep Thao.
To understand King Coffee, you have to look back at Trung Nguyen, the powerhouse brand founded in 1996 by Le Hoang Diep Thao and her then-husband, Dang Le Nguyen Vu.
• TNI Label: Notice the “TNI” logo at the top, which stands for Trung Nguyen International—the entity Thao managed.
• The Flavor Profile: It is designed to mimic the “Vietnamese Bold Style,” which typically uses Robusta beans for a high caffeine content and a distinct, smoky bitterness. Hello!
• Cultural Iconography: The design featuring a woman in an Áo dài and a Nón lá (conical hat) is a deliberate choice to brand the coffee as an authentic cultural export of Vietnam. 🇻🇳
One of this week’s specialty coffees was at Café Linh, tucked around Trương Định and Phạm Hồng Thái. Coffee with lime zest — sharp, bitter, refreshing all at once. Vietnam never runs out of ways to reinvent coffee without ruining it! Holla!
Another stop was a mild but tasty cà phê sữa đá on Đỗ Quang Đẩu Street. The young staff guy there had the kind of genuine smile that makes decisions for me. The café next door wanted my business more aggressively, but this place earned it quietly. 😊
The flavor logic is straightforward. Mint cools. Vietnamese coffee is dark, bitter, and heavy. The mint lifts it, adds a cold brightness that hits your nose before it hits your tongue. 😛
One of my favorite moments this week came before 8am on Đỗ Quang Đẩu. Sitting with a ca Phe den đá, watching the city wake itself up in real time. Motorbikes flowing toward school drop-offs and office jobs. Street vendors emerging from narrow hẻms, deciding where to set up for the day. Women carrying boards of sunglasses and lighters trying to sell me shades while I’m already wearing prescription Ray-Bans. You have to respect the hustle.
Between about 7:00 and 7:40 there’s this brief window where Saigon feels almost gentle. A little breeze moving through the streets before the sun fully takes over. The more pleasant the weather, the longer I sit and read. Currently reading “A Naked Singularity” by Sergio De La Pava.
But eventually the heat wins.
That’s usually when I go searching for my breakfast bánh mì from my favorite lady — the one who adds tomatoes without charging extra, then refuses to accept the extra 5,000 đồng tip I want to give her because I appreciate the gesture. It’s become our daily little battle. One I eventually win. 😊
Vietnam keeps giving. And I keep receiving with gratitude. 🙏
May 2026