Far away, on the outskirts of Prague (in the Libuš district), you’ll find SAPA, a small Vietnamese town I like to visit occasionally (Sapa is also a town in northwest Vietnam, close to the Chinese border). In fact, it’s more like a huge village-like shopping complex where the Vietnamese community congregates. The Vietnamese community is the3rd largest foreign community in the country (after the Ukrainians and Slovaks). Hardly a grocery store in the country is run by people of Vietnamese origin. The Vietnamese came to communist Czechoslovakia to work and study. With the fall of communism in 1989, the majority decided to stay and made the Czech Republic their permanent home. This created a community (Czechs of Vietnamese origin call themselves the „banana kids”: white on the inside, yellow on the outside) that serves as a base for new Vietnamese immigration.
You can visit it if you’re curious or looking for something exotic, but I only recommend it for longer stays in Prague.
For a 3-day stay in Prague, discover Vietnamese cuisine -a cuisine I really like- in one of the many local Vietnamese restaurants.
In this „Little Hanoi”, often referred to as a „city within a city”, you can eat Vietnamese in a small gargote, buy tropical fruits and thus make a cheap trip to South-East Asia. Created in 1999 on the site of a former farm, the market is open from 8am to 6pm and features over 1,000 vendors in a huge 250,000 m2 complex. Of course, you can also eat here: Pho Tung is considered Sapa’s best pho spot, Hai Há is known for its bún cha (grilled pork belly), Hai Phong for its bún cá (fish broth), Am Thuc Viet, a delicatessen, allows you to pay by weight, Ho Sen Quan Lotus is a more comfortable restaurant… In addition to many authentic Vietnamese restaurants, you’ll also find specialty grocery stores like Tamda Foods, language and cooking courses, venues for various social events and weddings, travel agencies, nail and hair salons and, of course, a small Buddhist temple. The SAPA market serves as the main transit area for Asian products throughout Eastern Europe.
How to get there?
Get to the Kačerovmetro station (line C), then take bus 113 to Sídliště Písnice (bus 197 also takes you there from Smíchovské nádraží). The exact address is Libušská 126.