A Few Posts on Saigon 3 – Rue Catinat

I was particularly pleased to find this pretty early (it seems – I don’t have a firm date) old postcard of the Rue Catinat in French controlled Saigon. Rue Catinat was one of the main drags of European Saigon and, I think, the main centre for bars, nightclubs, restaurants and whorehouses!! The notorious Continental Café on the road apparently never had less than 30 working girls employed full-time and the Dieppe Hotel was pretty racy too it seems (strange name – I went to Dieppe once and nothing remotely racy happened!!). So the seeming calm of this picture may have just represented the fact that the street got up rather late after a hard nights work and partying!!! and the rickshaw is looking for a rather shame-faced Frenchman who’s stayed out all night!