On the day a friend finishes her fifteen-day quarantine in a hotel by the Saigon River, she resurfaces on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, ravenous for local food. ‘Let’s go for lunch, now,’ she texts me. ‘Anywhere that’s outdoors.’

So I meet her by a Chanel boutique, opposite a high, blue metal fence with a sign that reads ‘Sorry for this inconvenience’. This fencing has been a fixture since 2017, when work on a couple of metro lines began underneath Le Loi Boulevard, clogging up a major artery in the heart of the city.

• Tags: Connla Stokes, Issue 23, Vietnam