Nguyen Hue Street, one of Saigon’s oldest thoroughfares, has undergone numerous transformations over its history. With the craziness of the holidays and accompanying sea of motorbikes, it's hard to imagine Saigon as a sleepy colonial backwater. But this image of Nguyen Hue Street, taken around 1871, less than 10 years after the French formally occupied the city, paints the 'city' as a calm and sparsely populated area.
This was the scene shortly after Nguyen Hue was converted from a canal into a street (pre conversion pictured below).
[Photo via manhhai]
