Viet Ville: pho in a half-empty refugee village
Go if the road takes you past it; do not build a morning around it. Viet Ville was built in 1996 for nearly 2,000 Vietnamese refugees who stayed on when the city's asylum centre closed — 13 hectares, about 200 cottages, a Buddhist pagoda and a chapel. Most residents left for the United States, Canada and Australia in the early 2000s; by 2018 five Vietnamese families remained. The village is visibly decaying, and what still operates is the Viet Ville restaurant, serving pho and banh mi in an August 2025 write-up. Check its Google Maps listing before you drive out.
A village that emptied, and one kitchen that did not
This is not a museum, a memorial or an attraction. It is a residential settlement that lost almost all its residents, with a restaurant in it. Go knowing that, and behave accordingly.
Viet Ville sits at Km 13, Brgy. Sta. Lourdes, on the road most tour vans take north towards the Honda Bay wharf and the Underground River. What you find is empty houses in various stages of collapse, overgrown lots, a Buddhist pagoda still standing, a chapel, and the restaurant — run by Filipino staff under church supervision by the time Roads & Kingdoms reported on it in 2018.
The menu is short: pho, banh mi baguettes, spring rolls and shrimp rolls in the 2018 reporting, and pho was still the dish people wrote about in 2025. We could not confirm current prices, so read the menu when you sit down. For the city's own version of the soup, chaolong noodle soup at Bona's on Manalo Street is the better bowl.
Tran Dung Minh, a former refugee who worked in the restaurant until 2015, told Roads & Kingdoms in 2018 what he thought of its pho: "There is no love in that broth." It is a hard line and it is the fairest single sentence about the place. What left with the families was not the recipe.
The practical bit
Rather book it?Viet Ville restaurant on TripAdvisor ↗
Forty years in six lines
The short version, because the long version is on the chaolong page where the food it produced is still being served.
After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Vietnamese refugees began arriving in Puerto Princesa. In 1979 the Philippine government, on the initiative of the Catholic Church and with UNHCR, opened the Philippine First Asylum Center beside the city's airport; it held eight to nine thousand refugees at a time. When it closed, the roughly 2,000 who chose to stay were moved in 1996 to Km 13, Sta. Lourdes: 13 hectares, about 200 cottages, a pagoda, a chapel, a French bakery and noodle and fish-sauce plants.
By the early 2000s most residents had gone to the United States, Canada and Australia, and in 2005 those remaining were allowed to resettle there. By 2018 five Vietnamese families were left in the village.
What survived the emigration was not the settlement but the food. Chaolong noodle soup is now eaten across the city by people whose families never set foot in the camp. The village emptied; the dish did not.
Is Viet Ville for you?
The trips that pass the door
Nobody sells a Viet Ville tour. The way people actually get here is by asking a northbound driver to stop, so the useful bookings are the trips that already go this way.
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Viet Ville questions, answered
Is Viet Ville worth visiting?
As a 45-minute stop on the way north to Honda Bay or the Underground River, yes. As a dedicated trip from the city — 13 km each way and a ₱300–500 tricycle charter for a bowl of pho — no. The village is semi-abandoned and the poignancy is the entire experience.
What is Viet Ville?
A settlement built in 1996 at Km 13, Brgy. Sta. Lourdes for the Vietnamese refugees who stayed when the city's asylum centre closed: 13 hectares, about 200 cottages, a Buddhist pagoda and a chapel, housing nearly 2,000 people. Most residents resettled abroad in the early 2000s and five Vietnamese families remained by 2018.
Is the Viet Ville restaurant still open?
It was serving pho in an August 2025 write-up, and it is the one place to eat in the village. Check its Google Maps listing for current hours before a 26 km round trip.
How do you get to Viet Ville from Puerto Princesa?
It is about 13 km north on the Sta. Lourdes road. Charter a tricycle for roughly ₱300–500 return with waiting time, or ask a Honda Bay driver to stop on the way back from the wharf. There is no Grab in this city, so agree the fare before you set off.
Is the food at Viet Ville good?
Competent rather than remarkable. Order the pho and the banh mi; for chaolong, the city's houses such as Bona's do it better. A former refugee who worked in the kitchen until 2015 told Roads & Kingdoms in 2018 that there is no love in the broth, and the line has stuck.
Can you look around the village itself?
Yes, along the roads and around the pagoda, which is still standing. People still live in a handful of the roughly 200 houses, so treat it as somebody's neighbourhood rather than a ruin: no walking into occupied lots, and ask before photographing anyone.
Is Viet Ville the same as the chaolong story?
It is the same history, split in two. The village is where the refugees who stayed were housed from 1996; chaolong is what their cooking became once it spread into the city. The village emptied and the dish did not.
Check before you drive out, because there is no plan B at Km 13
Puerto Princesa's restaurant scene turns over fast and most guides do not keep up. KaLui's old official domain now resolves to a gambling site, so do not follow links to it from older guides. Where a place could not be confirmed open from a recent source, this site leaves it out rather than guessing.
This is the page on this site where a closed door costs the most: it is a 26 km round trip and there is no second restaurant out there. Check the live Google Maps listing for current hours, or make it a stop on a day you were driving north anyway, and the risk disappears.
There are no Grab rides in Puerto Princesa yet. GrabFood has delivered in the city since October 2025, and on 30 September 2026 the city government said Grab's vehicles were undergoing the process to operate, but as of October 2026 you cannot book a car or bike ride on the app. The system here is the tricycle: the city ordinance fare for a shared ride is ₱12 for the first 2 km plus ₱2 a kilometre after, and drivers charge more to charter the whole trike from the airport. Agree the fare before you get in.