Everyone still calls it Saigon, and the name suits the way the city feels: quick, warm, a little impatient, endlessly hungry. My first evening I sat on a pavement in District 1 with a glass of iced coffee and counted motorbikes until I gave up somewhere past three hundred in a single light. Then I noticed the rest: the old woman selling lottery tickets, the family of four on one scooter, the smell of grilled pork drifting from an alley, the frangipani dropping onto a colonial balcony. The city rewards anyone who sits still long enough.
These twenty routes start in the old centre and in Cholon, the Chinese town, then spread out to the tunnels of Cu Chi, the temples of Tay Ninh, the coconut canals of Ben Tre, the floating market of Can Tho, the beaches of Vung Tau and the quiet islands of Con Dao. Saigon is the base for most of them. Go out early, hide from the afternoon heat, and eat whatever the busiest stall is selling.
