With many Saigon residents living in houses located six alleys down from the main road unable to recall their own address from memory, it’s no wonder that these residences are the last places mailmen want to visit.

In Ho Chi Minh City, houses are numbered following a tree-root method, meaning addresses are determined by how many alleys a building lies from the main street.  A slash (/) is used to separate each alley number in an address.

Alleys are numbered according to the houses on their sides. For instance, the alley between the houses numbered 1 and 5 on Street A is Alley No. 3. The first house inside Alley No.3 is numbered 3/1 Street A. If there is yet another alley next to house 3/1, houses inside that passage will carry the address as 3/3/x.

Using this method, some addresses include as many as six slashes, meaning they are located six alleys down from the main street, causing headaches to homeowners and those who want to find their houses.

Nguyen Van Tu is one such homeowner.  His address reads like a secret code: 1806/127/2/6/15/41. 

The Nha Be resident admitted to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he is unable to remember the numbers on his own and keeps a photo of the address on his mobile phone for easy reference.

For people not living in the area, visiting Tu and residents in his situation can be a daunting task and guests or taxi services usually must be met on the main street.

Tu and his neighbors wish for nothing more than simpler, easy-to-remember home addresses.

Even so, Tu’s five-slash address is nothing compared Ho Thi Kha Ai’s, weighing in at the whopping six-slash 1806/127/2/6/15/48/2C Huynh Tan Phat.

“The lengthy address is a real nuisance when it comes to completing paperwork,” she said.

It's almost impossible to find this house

People living on Bui Tu Toan Street in Binh Tan District are a bit luckier, with their password-like addresses having recently been shortened.

Nguyen Thi Hoa used to live at 36/45/32/49/13/44 Bui Tu Toan, but the address has been changed to 2/31/15 Extended 2D Street.

“I used to have to note down the address on a sheet of paper and receive visitors on the main street because they could never find my house,” Hoa said.

The new address (two slashes) and the old one

Below are some houses with crazily long addresses. Can you find them in real life?

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