The rain hits the window of the taxi like someone tipped a bucket over the sky. I’d landed at Tan Son Nhat about forty minutes earlier, and the moment I stepped out of the arrivals hall, the air wrapped around me—thick, warm, and wet, like a blanket fresh from the dryer. The driver didn’t even flinch. He just pointed at the gray sheet falling over the city and said something I didn’t catch, but I understood: this is normal. This is August in Ho Chi Minh City.
By the time we reached my new neighborhood in Binh Thanh, the downpour had softened to a steady hiss on the pavement. I paid the driver—about 180,000 dong for the twenty-minute ride, which felt steep until I did the math and realized it was under eight dollars. My apartment is a modest one-bedroom, the kind you find in a narrow alley off a main road, with a balcony that overlooks a tangle of motorbikes and power lines. Rent is about 7 million dong a month, roughly three hundred dollars. The walls are thin, the water pressure is a gamble, and I’ve never been happier to unlock a door.
I dumped my bags, changed into something that wasn’t soaked through, and went straight to Little HaNoi Egg Coffee on Yersin, because the first thing you do when you arrive in a new city is find a place that serves you something warm and sweet. The café is a narrow shop with plastic stools and a counter where a woman pours condensed milk into thick black coffee like she’s been doing it for decades, which she probably has. I ordered a cà phê sữa đá—iced, because even in the rain, the heat sticks to you—and sat by the window watching the street glide by in a blur of umbrellas and scooters.
That first afternoon, I learned the most important rule of Saigon living: the monsoon sets your schedule, not the clock. Every day, around four in the afternoon, the sky darkens, the wind picks up, and the city empties. Shops pull down their shutters, street vendors wheel their carts under awnings, and for about an hour, the streets belong to the rain. Then, just as suddenly, it stops, and everyone emerges like they’ve been holding their breath. The sidewalks fill again, the woks start sizzling, and the evening begins. You don’t fight the rain here. You build your life around it.
The next morning, I tackled the practical stuff. First, a SIM card at a small shop near Ben Thanh Market—the woman behind the counter barely looked up as she slid a tiny plastic card into a slot, and within minutes I had data and a local number. Cost me about 200,000 dong for the month, which is less than I’d pay for a single meal back in the US. Then, a bank account. I’d read that opening one as a foreigner takes a passport, a visa, and a bit of patience, so I picked a branch of Standard Chartered near the center, mostly because it had air conditioning and a sign in English. The process took an hour, two photocopies, and one very patient teller who walked me through the forms while the city hummed outside the glass doors.
Afterwards, I wandered into District 1, which is the postcard version of Saigon—wide boulevards, colonial buildings, and more coffee shops than I could visit in a year. I stopped at Naii Specialty Coffee for a flat white, because sometimes you need something familiar, and sat on the curb outside the War Remnants Museum, watching the tourists file in and out. The museum is heavy, I won’t pretend otherwise, but it’s also essential—a reminder that this city’s energy comes from a history that’s never been swept under the rug. I didn’t go in that day. I wanted my first visit to be deliberate, not rushed.
The afternoon monsoon caught me on Le Duan, right in the middle of a street that had transformed into a festival. I’d read about the VPBank Music Half Marathon happening that weekend, and apparently the city had turned the road into a three-day block party. There was a stage being set up, speakers stacked like cargo, and a crowd gathering even as the rain started. I ducked under a tree with a few dozen other people and watched the first drops hit the pavement. Then a man beside me offered me a piece of mango from a bag, and I took it, and we both laughed at the absurdity of being soaked to the bone on a street named after a French colonial governor.
The rain passed by five-thirty, as if it had a meeting to catch. I walked south toward the river, through streets that smelled of wet concrete and jasmine, and found myself at the Saigon Riverside Park just as the sky turned a bruised orange. The half-marathon crowds had thinned to a few joggers and couples taking selfies. I sat on a bench and watched the ferries slide across the brown water, the city lights flickering on one by one. This is the moment I’d been chasing when I booked the flight: standing in the middle of a place that doesn’t need my approval to exist, just letting it happen.
Later that evening, I met a friend of a friend who’s been living here for three years. Her name is Mai, and she took me to a spot she swore by—a tiny eatery in a back alley near the Ben Thanh market, not the kind of place you’d find in a guidebook, just plastic chairs and a menu on the wall with no English. She ordered for both of us: bánh mì with pâté and egg, about 30,000 dong each, and a round of cà phê sữa đá. We talked about the city in that way you do with someone who’s been here longer than you—she told me about the chaos of Tet, the quiet of the dry season, the way the city changes your sense of time. I told her I was nervous about the two-year commitment. She laughed and said, “You’ll stay longer.”
The next morning, I took the metro. Line 1 runs from Ben Thanh in the center out to Suoi Tien, and it’s the closest thing this city has to a time machine—you board in the noise of District 1, and twenty minutes later you’re in a different world. A single ride is about 15,000 dong, less than a dollar, and the stations are spotless, all glass and steel and announcements in Vietnamese and English. I rode it to the end and back, just to feel the rhythm of it, the way the city lurches forward into its future. The system is still new, still finding its footing, but it works. I bought a monthly pass—300,000 dong—and decided this would be my chariot for the foreseeable future.
In the afternoon, I took a bus to Cholon, the city’s Chinatown, because I wanted to understand the layers beneath the surface. District 5 is a different world inside the same city: narrow streets lined with herbal medicine shops, gold sellers, and temples that smell of incense and wood smoke. I wandered into a pagoda, its courtyards cool and green, and watched an old woman light a bundle of incense sticks with a match. She didn’t look at me, and I didn’t need her to. I just stood there, in the middle of a history that goes back centuries, and felt the weight of it—the Chinese merchants who settled here, the trade routes, the wars, the refugees, the resilience. This city doesn’t erase its past. It just builds on top of it.
Cholon also reminded me of something Mai had said: that Saigon rewards the wanderer. I found a street food market, little more than a row of steel tables and awnings, and ate a plate of bánh xèo—crispy, golden, filled with shrimp and bean sprouts—for about 40,000 dong. I washed it down with a sugarcane juice that cost a quarter. I felt a little guilty about how much I was eating, but then I remembered: this is the plan. I’m not a tourist here. I’m a resident. And residents learn a city through their stomachs.
Back in Binh Thanh that evening, I sat on my balcony and listened to the city settle. The rain started again at six, right on schedule, and I watched the lights blur across the river. I thought about the two years ahead: the plan is to spend the southern summer here, then drift slowly through the Mekong Delta as the monsoon breaks, ending up on Phú Quốc just as the weather turns. But that’s a future conversation. For now, I’m here, in Ho Chi Minh City, in August, in the rain, and it feels less like arriving and more like beginning.
Tomorrow, I’ll register for a motorbike license, and I’ll download the Grab app, and I’ll learn the bus routes—they’re free until the end of the year, which is a gift I don’t intend to waste. But tonight, I’m just listening to the rain on the tin roof, and I’m thinking about how the city doesn’t wait for you to catch up. It’s already moving, already full of stories, and all I have to do is keep up. I’m Linh, and this is where I live now. I’ll talk to you soon.
One more thing, before I go: if you ever find yourself in Saigon, and it starts to rain, don’t run. Step under the nearest awning, watch the water fall, and remember that this is the city’s heartbeat. It will pass. It always does.