Introducing Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

Fasten your seatbelts as
Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam is a metropolis on the move – and we’re not just talking about the motorbikes that throng the streets. Ho chi minh city, as it’s known to all but city officials, is Vietnam at its most dizzying: a high-octane city of commerce and culture that has driven the whole country forward with its limitless energy. It is a living organism that breathes life and vitality into all who settle here, and visitors cannot help but be hauled along for the ride.

HO chi minh city Vietnam is a name so evocative that it conjures up a thousand jumbled images. Wander through timeless alleys to ancient pagodas or teeming markets, past ramshackle wooden shops selling silk, spices and baskets, before fast-forwarding into the future beneath sleek skyscrapers or at designer malls, gourmet restaurants and minimalist bars. The ghosts of the past live on in the churches, temples, former GI hotels and government buildings that one generation ago witnessed a city in turmoil, but the real beauty of Ho chi minh city’s urban collage is that these two worlds blend so seamlessly into one.

Whether you want the finest hotels or the cheapest guesthouses, the classiest restaurants or the most humble street stalls, the designer boutiques or the scrum of the markets, Ho chi minh city has it all. Ho chi minh city Vietnam experience is about so many things – memorable conversations, tantalising tastes and moments of frustration – yet it will not evoke apathy. Stick around this conundrum of a city long enough and you may just unravel its mysteries.

Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam - Cao Dai Temple

Ho Chi Minh City ( Saigon )- Vietnam as it is still known to many, is Vietnam’s largest city with a growing population of around 7 million. This is a city on the go 24 hours a day, where everybody seems to be busy either buying, selling, studying, working or just enjoying themselves. Despite the fact that modern high-rise buildings have begun to dominate the skyline in recent years there are still many fine examples of French colonial architecture in Ho chi minh city Vietnam such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Old Saigon Post Office and the former Hotel de Ville. A stroll down Dong Khoi Street, the Rue Cantina of Graham Greene’s ‘The Quiet American’, will reveal more colonial classics like the Continental, Grand and Majestic hotels as well as dozens of tempting boutiques and galleries.

Ho Chi Minh City ( Saigon )- Vietnam is a real shopper’s paradise with modern shopping centers and trendy boutiques rubbing shoulders with traditional street markets. The city’s best-known market is Ben Thanh Market where you can buy anything from fresh fruit and flowers to the latest imported electronics and cosmetics. 

Ben thanh market

One of the most interesting places to visit in Ho Chi Minh City is the former Presidential Palace, now renamed the Reunification Hall. This building remains almost exactly as it was on the morning of 30th April 1975 when the Saigon regime surrendered to the victorious liberation forces and the country was reunified for the first time since 1945. For more war-related history the War Remnants Museum with its thought provoking display of weapons and photographs is also worth visiting.

Cho lon, Ho Chi Minh City’s Chinatown, is the frenetic commercial centre, where every building has a shop or workshop on the ground floor. Cho lon also has the city’s largest market, Binh Tay Market, and some fine pagodas including Thien Hau Pagoda, with its huge incense coils suspended from the ceiling.

A visit to the 15 May School, where disadvantaged children have the opportunity to study subjects as diverse as Vietnamese, English, mechanics, sewing and circus performing, is a very worthwhile option during a Ho Chi Minh City tour.

Cao Dai Temple 

For wining and dining it is hard to beat Ho Chi Minh City. The city is crammed full of restaurants and bars ranging from simple pavement stalls where you can buy a bowl of noodles for a few cents to sophisticated restaurants serving fine European cuisine at a fraction of the price you would pay in Europe. Ho Chi Minh City’s nightlife has become very cosmopolitan in recent years and there are literally hundreds of bars, pubs, night clubs and discotheques to pick from for a night on the town. Further a field, popular day trips from Ho Chi Minh City include the incredible Cu Chi Tunnels built by Vietnamese resistance fighters during the long years of struggle for independence and the bizarre Cao Dai Temple at Tay Ninh.