The Patchwork World of Thảo Điền

What do you get when you cross foreign hipsters, the newly-wealthy, and regular Vietnamese folks? Probably something that resembles the neighborhood of Thảo Điền, in District 2. We spent a day walking around this weird section of town, constantly finding ourselves surprised by the abrupt shifts in style, around every other corner.

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We started our day at Dolphy Cafe, which is perhaps the nexus of Saigon’s hipsterdom. As if on cue, minutes after we had sat down at the bar, this… thing with mess...