Long before Saigon became a maelstrom of motorbikes zipping past bubble tea shops, convenience stores, and cellphone sellers, it was a sleepy town where sampan boats cluttered placid canals, locals snoozed under thatched roofs and colonizers had begun to roam around wearing pith helmets and pleated pants.
It's not to say things were necessarily better in Saigon approximately 120 years ago - penicillin hadn't been invented yet and the French were constantly trying to squeeze the poor nation of all it had, resource by resource, after all. Yet, the plentitude of trees and a pace of life that moved as fast as a backwater branch of the Saigon River seems like it would be a nice addition to the metropolis' modern-day manifestation.
Except for the elephants in the Zoo and Botanical Garden, these photos from 1902 taken by an unidentified photographer allow one to glimpse a city that bears almost no resemblance to the Saigon of today. The rapidity of change is astounding.
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