Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Experiences of Saigon’s street coffee

Even though there are plenty of bars for you to wander in and out of making new friends and having drinks, the part of Saigon at night that is truly special can be found at the parks and outside the more accessible famous sightseeing destinations in Saigon. You can easily go to the park across the street from the famous sightseeing monument, Notre Dame Cathedral. There you will find what the kids have dubbed “Ca phe bet” which translates roughly to Saigon’s street coffee. You have to love that! Indochina tours Vietnam

30/4 Park, Saigon
30/4 Park, Saigon

It is located just across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral at the park. You can find the park at the cross street of Pasteur and Han Thuyen. Just take a seat wherever you think you might be comfortable, a vendor will soon be by to take your order.

At the centre of each group there’s an assortment of take-away food and drink: sweet Vietnamese iced coffee and tapioca ‘pearl tea’ in plastic cups, dried and grilled squid, crispy-grilled rice paper wraps, fried skewers of okra, quail eggs and fish balls; all eaten off polystyrene trays smeared with chilli and hoisin sauce. Vendors work busily on the sidewalk to keep up with demand, while ice cream sellers on bicycles meander through the park looking for customers; the ‘ice cream jingle’ blaring out of speakers and played on a continuous loop. There’s not a drop of alcohol in sight. Vietnam travel tours

Vendor
Vendor

It’s wonderful to witness and there’s something reassuring about it. It’s very Vietnamese, very local, but also familiar, almost bohemian. It’s a chance for Vietnam’s exploding youth to interact; away from the eyes of teachers in classrooms, professors in lecture theatres, parents at home, and other social constraints which are the legacy of centuries of Confucianism and a generation of Communism. It seems to be an expression of the optimism and youth of this generation. There’s an infectious buzz that makes you wish you were a part of the excitement and youth of the students sitting in the park. They sit in groups – small and large – talking and laughing constantly, some playing acoustic guitars, others singing; their songs occasionally penetrating the incessant roar of engines that characterizes Saigon’s rush-hour.

The students playing acoustic guitars in the park
The students playing acoustic guitars in the park

The reason Ca phe bet is frowned upon by the authorities is that it disrupts pedestrians walking through the park and, sadly, many of the students neglect to take their rubbish away with them, leaving an unsightly mess of polystyrene and plastic cups strewn over the grass. In the past, students rode their motorbikes and bicycles up onto the sidewalk and into the park, or left them by the side of the road, causing traffic congestion. The Saigon authorities countered this with an elegant solution: they set up barriers around the perimeter of the park; disguising them as street vegetation by linking dozens of flower baskets at regular intervals with a white chain at knee height.

Whatever the tensions between the city authorities and the students enjoying Ca phe bet in this area, there’s little doubt that the youth sitting on the ground in Reunification Park have very different ideas, values and expectations for the future than their parents and, I expect, the local government – the vast majority of whom are of the older generation.

Travel lovers.

Read more:

Blog Categories

Article Submission

If you would like to submit an article or a travel story, please contact:

info@indochinavoyages.com

Tripadvisor Reviews

Menu