Travellers visiting Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam may feel a palpable energy when walking the streets and negotiating the typically Vietnamese, Asian markets. For the casual visitor, Saigon, as it’s still called by locals seems a chaotic mess of traffic-clogged roads and urban bustle with sprawling concrete and very little greenery but thousands of expats and Vietnamese couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. They’ve long since fallen prey to the hidden charms of one of Southeast Asia’s liveliest cities.
If every town had a symbol, Ho Chi Minh City’s would surely be the motorbike. More than three million of them fly along streets and park wherever is convenient for the driver, footpaths are transformed into bike parking lots and pedestrians find themselves having to negotiate the road. The most convenient and cost effective way for a traveller to experience this city is astride a xe om (motorbike taxi). Teeming markets, sidewalk cafés, massage and acupuncture clinics, centuries-old pagodas, sleek skyscrapers and ramshackle wooden shops selling silk, spices, baskets and handmade furniture all jockey for attention amid the surreal urban collage.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Ben Thanh Market
The clock tower over the main entrance to what was formerly known as Les Halles Centrale is the symbol of Saigon, and the market might as well be, too. Opened first in 1914, it's crowded narrow, one-way aisles, loaded with people clamoring to sell to locals and tourists cheap goods. Toward the back of Ben Thanh Market are situated a few small cafes serving local cuisine or coffee and che, a popular Vietnamese dessert. The wet market at the far back, with its selection of meat, fish, produce, and flowers, is interesting and is typically the supermarket of South East Asia. In open-air stalls surrounding the market are some small eateries that open just as the market itself starts closing down, and this is in fact one of the best place to try authentic local cuisine.
Most people when hearing the name Saigon think of its most famous building, The Reunification Palace as it holds the reputation as the symbolic structure in the fall of Saigon in April of 1975.
Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The Renufication Palace was designed as the home for former president Ngo Dinh Diem, the U.S.-backed leader of Vietnam until his assassination in 1962. The catalyst for the fall of Saigon during 1975 when the buildings gates were breached by North Vietnamese tanks and the victors’ flag hung from a balcony. The very tanks that crashed through the gates are enshrined in the entryway.
Built on the site of the French Governor General's home, called the Norodom Palace, the current modern building was completed in 1966. The Conference Hall in the main room is still used for important national events.
Ho Chi Minh City boasts a variety of interesting sights of varying historical significance.
- Cholon ("Chinatown" of Ho Chi Minh City) - the largest Chinatown in the world
- Giac Lam Pagoda - originally built in 1744 and remodelled in the early 1900s, it is the oldest pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.
- Emperor Jade Pagoda (Phuoc Hai) - built by the Cantonese community around the turn of the 20th century, a interesting Pagoda filled with smoky incense and carved figurines.
- Notre Dame Cathedral - the neo-Romanesque cathedral was constructed between 1877 and 1883 using bricks from Marseilles and stained-glass windows from Chartres
- Cu Chi Tunnels - 65km northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, the Cu Chi area lies at the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was the base from which Ho Chi Minh guerrillas used to attack Saigon.
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