District 10's Khmer Noodle Houses and Pagoda Incense Trail

The 135 bus from Bến Thành drops you at the corner of Nguyễn Tri Phương and Lê Đại Hành, and within two blocks the signage switches. Vietnamese gives way to Khmer script, the soup stocks shift from phở-sweet to prahok-funky, and the incense gets thicker. District 10 is where Saigon's Khmer community has run noodle houses and maintained Theravada pagodas for generations — not as cultural exhibits, but because people live here and need to eat and pray.

I spent three days walking this neighborhood last March with no particular agenda beyond hunger and a bus pass. What I found was a circuit — roughly 2.5 kilometers — that threads through four pagodas and at least a dozen noodle shops worth your morning. Nobody's marketing it as a trail. I'm just connecting the dots.

1. Start with the soup at Bún Nước Lèo Sóc Trăng, 468 Lê Hồng Phong

Bún nước lèo is the dish that sorts the tourists from the regulars in District 10. It's a Khmer fish-and-pork broth darkened with fermented fish paste — mắm bò hóc on the Vietnamese side, prahok if you're Cambodian — ladled over rice vermicelli with banana blossom, water spinach, and cubes of congealed pig blood. That last ingredient is non-negotiable.

The version at 468 Lê Hồng Phong is the one I keep returning to. Served from a shopfront kitchen with four plastic tables on the sidewalk, it costs 35,000 VND and comes with a plate of herbs that would cost extra anywhere trying harder. The broth is murky and thick. It smells like low tide. Best bowl of soup in the district, and I'll fight anyone who nominates a phở place instead.

They open at 6:00 a.m. and sell out by 10:30 most days. Don't bother at lunch.

2. Chùa Chandaransey and the morning bell

Walk south from the noodle shop about 400 meters and you'll hit Chùa Chandaransey on Thành Thái. It's one of roughly a dozen Khmer Theravada pagodas in District 10, and the only one where a monk invited me to sit down and stop sweating.

The architecture doesn't look like Vietnamese pagodas. The roof peaks are sharper, the naga serpents curl along the stair rails, and the interior walls carry murals of the Jataka tales in sun-bleached pigments that nobody seems in a hurry to restore. Good. Restoration usually means painting over.

Morning chanting runs from about 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. You can sit in the courtyard and listen without entering the prayer hall. Remove your shoes, keep your feet pointed away from the altar if you do go inside, and don't photograph monks without asking. None of this is complicated.

3. Skip the Khmer Culture Museum on Trần Quốc Thảo

People recommend it. Guidebooks mention it. I walked through in twenty minutes and wished I'd spent the time on another bowl of noodles. The collection is sparse, the labels are photocopied sheets under glass, and the building itself has the ambiance of a municipal filing office. If Khmer material culture interests you — and it should — the pagodas themselves are better museums. Free admission, too.

4. The incense circuit: three more pagodas before noon

From Chandaransey, the route I walked hits three pagodas within about a kilometer of each other. Chùa Pothiwong on Nguyễn Chí Thanh. Chùa Candaransi (different from Chandaransey — the transliterations are a headache) on Trần Quốc Toản. And Chùa Sêrey Mungkul further south.

Pothiwong was dead quiet when I arrived at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday — just one elderly woman lighting incense at a side altar. Candaransi had a group of teenage monks studying under a corrugated awning. Sêrey Mungkul had a dog asleep on the steps and a caretaker who waved me toward the main hall without a word.

The incense is the thread. Every Theravada pagoda here burns the same coiled sandalwood type, and by your third stop it's embedded in your shirt. I could still smell it on my backpack two days later in Đà Lạt.

None of these charge entry fees. Donation boxes sit near the entrance of each prayer hall — 20,000 to 50,000 VND is appropriate.

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5. Afternoon noodles: Hủ tiếu Nam Vang and the pork question

Hủ tiếu Nam Vang — Phnom Penh-style noodle soup — is District 10's other great Khmer contribution to Saigon eating. The broth is pork-bone clear, sweeter than bún nước lèo, and loaded with ground pork, liver, shrimp, and a fried wonton or two depending on the shop.

The consensus pick is usually some version of a shop on Sư Vạn Hạnh. Fine. But I prefer the stall with no name at the intersection of Lê Đại Hành and Bà Hạt, where a woman who looks profoundly uninterested in conversation serves a dry version — hủ tiếu khô — with the broth on the side and everything tossed in lard and soy sauce. 40,000 VND.

Dry over soup. That's my position. The noodles hold their texture for more than forty-five seconds, which is more than the soup version can claim.

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6. Getting there and getting around without a taxi

District 10 is flat and walkable once you're in it. The whole pagoda-and-noodle circuit I've described covers maybe 2.5 kilometers. Grab a xe ôm if your feet give out — 15,000 to 20,000 VND between any two points on this route via Grab Bike.

From Bến Thành Market, the 135 or 01 city buses both pass through District 10. Fare is 5,000 VND. Air conditioning exists in theory.

The neighborhood is residential. No one is selling you a walking tour. No one has laminated a map. This is the appeal.