5 Days in Ho Chi Minh City

Start at the red-brick cathedral that Saigon uses as its logo. The French built it between 1877 and 1880 and shipped almost everything out from France: the brick came from Toulouse, some roof tiles from Marseille, the stained glass from Chartres. The two towers were added in 1895. In front stands a granite Virgin Mary that arrived from Rome in 1959, and in 2005 crowds blocked the street for days after a rumor that she had shed a tear.

The basilica has been under restoration since 2017, so expect the outside only. In March 2026 the scaffolding was coming down and two gold-plated crosses, made in Belgium, went back on the towers, but the parish priest has said the work will take longer than the original end-2027 target. Services have continued during the work.

Walk across the square to the yellow building with the big clock. The Central Post Office went up in 1886-1891, designed by the French architect Alfred Foulhoux. You'll hear that Gustave Eiffel drew it, and that's a myth: he had nothing to do with it, though the iron-and-glass hall does look like a railway station.

Inside, look up at the vaulted ceiling, then at the two painted maps from 1892, one of telegraph lines across southern Vietnam and Cambodia, the other of Saigon. A large portrait of Ho Chi Minh hangs at the end of the hall. It's still a working post office, so the counters, the stamps and the souvenir stalls are all real; send a postcard from here, it's the best 10-minute activity in the building.

A 15-minute walk down Dong Khoi takes you to Nguyen Hue, and number 42 is a 1960s apartment block that has slowly turned into a vertical mall of cafes, boutiques and studios. It's one of the most photographed buildings in the city and it's obviously a tourist stop, but it's also a good way to start your first proper cà phê sữa đá (iced coffee with condensed milk) from a window over the street.

Go up the staircase and pick any cafe with a view. For a more local coffee at a fraction of the price, any street stall with plastic stools will do it, and you'll find them on every corner.

The Ben Thanh Market is the city's best-known landmark after the cathedral. Traders have gathered by the Saigon River since the 1600s, and the current iron-framed building with its clock tower dates from 1912-1914. It's open daily from about 6am to 6pm, and from 6pm to 10pm the streets on either side turn into a night market.

Be realistic about it. It's a tourist market: clothes, bags, coffee and dried fruit, almost nothing is priced, and sellers will quote you well above what locals pay, so bargain hard and walk away if the price doesn't move. The hall is split between souvenir stalls and ordinary shops selling fruit, rice, kitchenware, flowers and cheap food, so look beyond the T-shirts for a quick bánh mì or a bowl of noodles for lunch. For a market that feeds the city rather than the visitors, wait for day five and Binh Tay.

Nguyen Hue was a canal until the French filled it in 1886-1887, which is why it's so wide and straight. The center was turned into a pedestrian plaza in 2015 and at weekends the whole boulevard is closed to traffic in the evening. It runs from the Hotel de Ville, now the City Hall, which opened in 1909 and is lit up at night (you can only go inside on the last weekend of each month), down to the Saigon River.

Come at dusk, when families and couples fill the street and nobody is in a hurry. Walk down to the water and back, and take in the Saigon Opera House on the way, a French-built theater finished in 1900 that still puts on shows. It's a good place to watch the city get on with its evening.

Saigon does rooftops well, because the skyline is the show. Chill Skybar sits on the 26th floor of the AB Tower on Le Lai, right between the market and the backpacker streets, and gives you a wide view over District 1. It opens around 5:30pm, and closing time (1am to 3am) varies by listing. Smart casual dress is required.

Go early for a table by the edge. If you'd rather not pay rooftop prices, the Bitexco Financial Tower has a paid Skydeck with a 360-degree view (about 240,000 VND, 9 USD, in a late-2025 review).

Ten minutes from Chill Skybar is Bui Vien, the backpacker street, and it deserves an honest verdict. It's the loudest, cheapest, most chaotic stretch in the city: small bars with speakers pointing at each other, plastic stools on the road and karaoke. It became a walking street in 2017, with vehicles banned on weekend evenings (reported as 7pm to 2am, so check on the night), and it's the center of the old backpackers' quarter around Pham Ngu Lao.

It has also been criticized for years as a noisy, overcrowded tourist trap that locals have abandoned, and in 2025 the authorities moved against nitrous oxide "laughing gas" sales, drugs and prostitution in the area. Walk it once for 20 minutes, order one cold Saigon beer on a stool, watch the show, and leave. For a calmer night, go back to Nguyen Hue or to Thao Dien on day five.

The Independence Palace, also called Reunification Hall, is a 1960s time capsule. The French governor's Norodom Palace stood here until 1962, when two South Vietnamese air force pilots bombed it, and President Ngo Dinh Diem ordered a replacement. The architect Ngo Viet Thu, who had won the Grand Prize of Rome in 1955, designed the modernist building, inaugurated in October 1966. It was the home and office of South Vietnam's presidents until the morning of 30 April 1975, when a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the front gate and the war effectively ended. In Vietnam that day is Reunification Day. For many people who left the country afterwards, it started something else.

The interior has been left more or less as it was in 1975. Look for the aggressively 1960s recreation room on the third floor with its circular sofa, and the basement full of vintage telephones, radios and office equipment. A replica of tank 843, the one that came through the gate, stands on the lawn. A short film tells the end of the war from the Vietnamese government's point of view. The Ho Chi Minh City Museum, in the 1890 Gia Long Palace, is close by if you want more local history.

A short walk away is the War Remnants Museum. It opened in September 1975 as the Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes, was renamed a few times, and took its present name in 1995. Be clear about what it is: a Vietnamese government museum showing the war from the Vietnamese side. It gives its photographs and objects with little of the surrounding context that museums elsewhere would add, and some visitors, Americans among them, find it one-sided. It is worth seeing for that reason: this is how the war is remembered in the country where it was fought.

Outside, a yard holds US-made tanks, aircraft and bombs, along with a reproduction of the prison "tiger cages". Inside, the photographs and displays on Agent Orange, napalm and the My Lai massacre are what stay with you. Some exhibits are graphic, including preserved specimens in jars and a guillotine, so go in prepared, and think twice about bringing young children.

Lunch should be the dish Saigon is most proud of. Cơm tấm, broken rice, started as a poor farmer's meal in the Mekong Delta: the grains that broke in milling couldn't be sold at full price, so people cooked them at home. In Saigon it became a plate with a grilled pork chop and a steamed egg-and-pork cake, and the saying goes that Saigon people eat it the way Hanoi people eat pho.

Ba Ghien, at 84 Dang Van Ngu in Phu Nhuan, has long been known for the biggest pork chop in town, marinated in a sweet sauce and grilled to order, and it's usually the first name you hear. Order a sườn (pork chop) with the extras and a glass of iced tea. It's a Grab ride from the museum, across the city to the north.

The most famous temple in central Saigon is a short ride north. The Jade Emperor Pagoda, officially Phước Hải Tự, is a Taoist temple dedicated to the Jade Emperor, the ruler of the gods in Chinese belief. It was built in the early 1900s (1909 is the date usually given) by Cantonese immigrants, and it passed to the Buddhist association only in 1982. Incense smoke fills the dark wooden halls, which hold painted figures of gods and guardians, and to the left of the main hall there is a room of unusual figurines.

Don't skip the courtyard pond, full of turtles. Dress with shoulders and knees covered, and keep your voice down. If you want the oldest pagoda in the city instead, Giac Lam, built in 1744, is in Tan Binh, but it's farther out.

Tan Dinh Church was finished in 1876 and has been painted pastel pink, inside and out, since 1957. It's the second-largest church in the city after Notre-Dame, and locals simply call it the pink church. Tan Dinh Market, an everyday neighborhood market, is a few minutes away.

You could take a car, but this is the evening to try the thing every visitor is nervous about: a motorbike ride as a pillion. Open the Grab app, choose a motorbike, and the driver brings a helmet. Hold on, keep your knees in, and sit still through the turns. Traffic in Saigon moves like a school of fish, and it works because everyone is predictable. It's a short hop to District 4, south of the center, at a fare set in the app.

Vinh Khanh is a roughly one-kilometer strip of snail and seafood restaurants, an official food street since 2018 and, since the 2025 reorganization, in Khanh Hoi ward, though everyone still says District 4. It's quiet by day. After dark the pavement fills with grills, plastic tables and motorbikes.

Order ốc (snails and shellfish) cooked a few ways: steamed with lemongrass, grilled with scallion oil, stir-fried in butter or tamarind sauce, or with salted egg yolk. Add a cold beer. Ốc Oanh at 534 Vinh Khanh is the best-known place, so expect a crowd. Ask for the price of each dish before it's cooked, especially anything sold by weight.

Cu Chi is a rural district in the northwest of the city, about 33 km from the center at its nearest, and the tunnel sites are farther out, so the road takes much of the day. Book a group tour from any agency near Pham Ngu Lao, hire a car with a driver, or take a speedboat and then a minibus. Group tours are cheap and easy; your hotel will charge more for the same trip. See one site, not two.

The Cu Chi tunnels grew into a network of roughly 120 km used by the Viet Cong, the southern communist guerrillas, as hiding places, supply routes, hospitals and living quarters. US forces ran big operations against them, including Crimp in 1966 and Cedar Falls in 1967, and the tunnels were a base for the Tet Offensive of 1968. After reunification the government preserved them as a memorial park.

Ben Dinh is the one most tours visit, around 45-50 km from the center, and the easy one. Be honest about what it is: a partial reconstruction. Some tunnels were widened and lit for visitors, there are models of the booby traps, restored underground meeting rooms, an introductory film that tells the story from the guerrillas' side, and a lot of souvenir stands. You can crawl through a short stretch of tunnel, and the exits are marked if it's too tight. It's crowded and some visitors find it staged, but it explains how the war was fought on the ground better than most books.

Ben Duoc is the alternative, and the one to pick if you want a quieter, rawer visit. It sits farther out, about 15 minutes or more beyond Ben Dinh, but the crowds are smaller and the tunnels are described as closer to their original narrow size. It has a memorial temple, an introductory film that one review says hasn't changed since the 1970s, and its own shooting range. Fewer facilities, though.

Pick Ben Duoc with a private car for a calmer visit, Ben Dinh on a group tour or with kids. You don't need both. Much of what you'll read about Ben Duoc being more authentic comes from operators who sell trips there.

Both sites have a shooting range where you can fire military rifles by the bullet, and bullets are usually not included in the tour price. Whether you do it is your call. It's a commercial add-on at what is also a memorial, many visitors skip it, and others see it as part of the day. Either way it's a clear reminder that Cu Chi is a tourist business as well as a war site.

If you want to try it, ask for the price per bullet and the total before you start, as the rate differs by site and season, and follow the staff's instructions.

Back in town, tired and dusty, eat something small and savory. Bò lá lốt is minced beef seasoned with garlic and shallot, wrapped in a wild betel leaf and grilled over charcoal, then rolled in rice paper with herbs and vermicelli. Most stalls only serve it in the evening.

Cô Liêng at 321 Vo Van Tan in District 3 is a Michelin-listed place that opens around 8:30am and closes around 9:30pm, which is unusual for the dish. Bò Lá Lốt Phương in District 4 is a smaller local option, but its address varies by listing, so check a map.

Be clear about the choice before you book. A Mekong Delta day trip means a long day, nine to ten hours, with roughly 1.5-2 hours on the road each way and the rest on boats and in workshops. You see canals, coconut palms and a village or two, and it's pleasant and low effort, but it's also the most commercial way to see the delta, with shopping stops that reviewers complain about.

The real floating markets happen at dawn, which a day trip from Saigon can't reach. If you want that, go to Can Tho (169 km, about 3.5 hours by bus), stay one night, and take a boat at 5:30am. If you only have this one day, pick a small-group tour or a private driver, and ask in advance how many shopping stops there are.

Most trips start at My Tho, now officially a ward in Dong Thap province after the 2025 mergers, on the Tien River, an arm of the Mekong. You step onto a boat, cross to an island, and visit a pagoda such as Vinh Trang on the way. The river is wide and brown, the islands are green, and the working river traffic is real.

Don't expect wild nature. The delta is farmland, and the best thing about it is how people live around the water.

The part everyone remembers is the sampan ride along a narrow creek lined with coconut palms. It's a set piece on every tour, and a little staged, but it's beautiful and quiet. Ben Tre is the coconut country, and tours stop at a workshop where coconut candy is made by hand and sold in the same room. You'll also be offered honey tea at a bee farm and, on many itineraries, a short performance of traditional music.

Lunch is part of most packages and is usually a set meal at a garden restaurant. It's fine, and rarely the best food of your trip. The real delta taste is in the small things: the coconut candy, honey tea and whatever fruit is in season.

For a late dinner after the delta, go to a bánh xèo restaurant: a crisp yellow turmeric pancake, named for the sizzle it makes in the pan, stuffed with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts and wrapped in lettuce and herbs. Banh Xeo 46A on Dinh Cong Trang is the best-known place in town. Order a regular one for each person and a plate of herbs to wrap them in.

Cholon, "big market", was a Chinese city in its own right, founded in 1865, until it merged with Saigon in 1931, and it's usually called the largest Chinatown in the world by area. The Hoa, the ethnic Chinese of Vietnam, have lived here for centuries, and many speak Cantonese at home. Many left after 1975, but a large number still live here. Binh Tay Market is the heart of it. It was built in 1928-1930 with money from the Chaozhou businessman Quach Dam.

Unlike Ben Thanh, it's mostly wholesale: fruit, meat, spices, Chinese medicine, silk, dried seafood. Ask before photographing people. Much of what is sold at Ben Thanh comes from here, so prices are lower.

A short ride away is Thien Hau, on Nguyen Trai Street, a temple to Mazu, the goddess of the sea and protector of sailors and fishermen. Cantonese immigrants from Guangzhou founded it around 1760 as a guildhall, and it is still a place of worship, not a museum.

Look up. Dozens of large spiral incense coils hang over the main altar, bought by worshippers with their names attached, and some burn for several weeks. The roof carries small porcelain figures showing scenes from Chinese legends. It's a working temple, so be quiet and respectful, with covered knees and shoulders.

The Chinese quarters of the city gave Saigon one of its best noodle soups. Hủ tiếu started with the Teochew Chinese of Cambodia and came to Saigon as hủ tiếu Nam Vang (Nam Vang is the Vietnamese name for Phnom Penh). It's a clear, slightly sweet pork broth with chewy noodles, minced pork, prawns, quail eggs and pickled cabbage, and you can have it in broth (nước) or dry (khô), with a small bowl of broth on the side.

Thanh Xuan at 62 Ton That Thiep in District 1 is a family shop serving hủ tiếu Mỹ Tho, a close cousin of the Nam Vang style, since 1946. It opens early and closes by mid-afternoon. Dry with a bowl of broth on the side is the way to order.

Line 1 opened on 22 December 2024. It runs 19.7 km from Ben Thanh in the center to Suoi Tien in the northeast, through 14 stations: three underground (Ben Thanh, Opera House, Ba Son), then Van Thanh Park, Tan Cang, Thao Dien and eight more on a viaduct. The full ride takes roughly 30 minutes. Trains run about every 8 to 12 minutes, from 5am to 10pm on weekdays and until 11pm on weekends and public holidays, according to the operator's August 2025 announcement.

Fares are by distance: 7,000-20,000 VND with cash tickets, slightly less cashless. You can tap a contactless Visa or Mastercard at the gates, or buy a single or day ticket at the machines. It's not much use inside District 1, but it's the quickest way to the east side. It doesn't go to the airport.

Get off at Thao Dien, the sixth station (5.5 km from Ben Thanh), and you're in the city's best-known expat neighborhood, across the river from the center. It's leafy, low-rise and walkable, with design-led cafes, galleries, international restaurants, riverside bars and a growing craft beer scene, and it feels very different from District 1.

Pick any cafe on the lanes near the metro station, order an iced Vietnamese filter coffee and sit for half an hour. Some visitors say it feels disconnected from the rest of Vietnam. That's true, and it's also why people like it.

Ride back one station toward the center to Tan Cang, the stop for the Vinhomes Central Park complex, and walk or take a short Grab to Landmark 81, the tallest building in Vietnam at 461 meters. Its SkyView deck on floors 79 to 81 opened to visitors in 2019 and gives you a wide view of the city lights as the day ends. If you'd rather not pay for the deck, the mall at the foot of the tower has restaurants and a food court.