Top Oz Tours offers a great range of Ho Chi Minh City tours and experiences. You can browse the options here.
Ho Chi Minh City — or Saigon as it was formerly and affectionately known — is electric, and we’re not talking about the endless neon signs and masses of tangled lines strung between groaning power poles.
There’s an incredible energy to this city, which was renamed in honour of the revered northern communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh following the Vietnam War. You can feel it everywhere as more than ten million people go about their daily business. The streets teem with food vendors and are lined with open store fronts selling everything from bananas to bathroom fittings.
With plenty of museums and temples to explore, a visit to Ho Chi Minh City will give you a broad understanding of the intricacies of Vietnamese culture — but equally it’s a great place to unwind and indulge in some R&R.
Here’s a checklist of our top ten things to do in Ho Chi Minh City on a first visit.
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Watch our video of ten top things to do in Vietnam:
10 Top Things to Do in Vietnam on a First Visit | Explore Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi
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1. Learn about the Vietnam War
While the Vietnamese people wisely choose to focus on the future, Ho Chi Minh City offers numerous opportunities to learn about their turbulent and often tragic past — including the two-decades-long Vietnam War (referred to locally as the American War). It raged between communist North Vietnam and democratic South Vietnam from the mid 1950s through to 1975. The US and its allies entered the conflict with troops on the ground from 1965 to 1973.
Visit the Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum to get a contrasting sense of both the splendour of Saigon as the capital of then South Vietnam in the 1960s, and the horrors of the war itself. The Palace was the home and workplace of the South Vietnamese President up until the fall of Saigon and you can check out the ornately decorated reception rooms, along with the basement war bunker. At the War Remnants Museum, you’ll find military hardware outside and graphic photographs inside. Warning: it’s raw and not for the faint of heart.
2. Brave the Cu Chi Tunnels
Pretty much everyone who visits Ho Chi Minh City does a tour out to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Located 60 kilometres north-west of the city, Cu Chi played a key role during the Vietnam War. The region is legendary for its 220-kilometre network of hand-dug tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong to evade US troops. Some of the tunnels have been widened to accommodate tourists. Brave them if you dare.
3. Admire the French-era architecture
Thanks to its colonial past, Ho Chi Minh City is home to some fabulous French-influenced architecture. Some of the best examples are the Saigon Central Post Office, Ho Chi Minh City Hall, and Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon — built in the late 1800s. At the post office, note the portrait of the revered Ho Chi Minh watching serenely over the countless transactions performed here every day.
4. Soak in the view from Saigon Skydeck
To get a 360-degree bird’s-eye view of the entire city, head to Saigon Skydeck on the 49th floor of the Bitexco Financial Tower. A high-speed elevator will whisk you up to the observation deck in less than 35 seconds.
5. Do a tour to the Mekong Delta
For a taste of rural life in Vietnam’s watery south, book a day trip to the Mekong Delta. Known as the ‘rice bowl of Vietnam’ due to its huge agricultural output, here the mighty Mekong River fans out into a series of smaller waterways. The area is best explored by boat and there are dozens of tours from Ho Chi Minh City that offer similar inclusions. You’ll navigate the Delta’s network of small channels in a sampan (flat bottom canoe), see serene pagodas, rice paddy fields, and fruit tree orchards, and enjoy lunch at a family-run bistro.
6. Eat at some great restaurants
The French also blessed Saigon with delicious baguettes and impressive pastries, but that’s just the beginning of your culinary journey of discovery in this city. From cheap-and-cheerful street food to sumptuous fine cuisine, and everything in between, you’ll find it here in droves. Here’s a handful of tried-and-tested recommendations.
OK, yes, in happier times (pre-divorce) Brangelina dined at Cuc Gach Quan, but that’s not why you should check out this quirky, architecturally designed restaurant on the periphery of Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1. Sure, the décor is impressive, but it’s the food that keeps people coming back again and again. You have to try the clay pot tofu and mushrooms and the crispy sea bass with passionfruit sauce. Drinking from sugar cane straws is kind of nice too.
Affectionately known as the ‘yellow restaurant’, dining institution Quan An Ngon brings traditional street food into a tourist-friendly setting. It’s a lot of fun to browse the food stalls, and if you’re anxious about trying cheap eats on the street — this is the next best thing!
To chow down like a local, head along to the buzzing rooftop 3T Quan Nuong Vietnamese BBQ. It gets seriously busy, so ask your hotel concierge to make a reservation for you. There’s no sign on the street; just make your way to the top floor.
7. Take a cooking class
A cooking class is a great way to get first-hand experience of preparing authentic Vietnamese food, and the best part is you get to eat what you make! Try top-rated Saigon Cooking Class, which is located in District 1.
8. Go shopping
As with many things in Saigon, the scale of retail experiences — from dirt cheap to ultra fancy — will blow your mind. If labels like Gucci and Versace are your style (you chic thing, you), head to the Vincom Centre — the city’s most upscale mall. For a more localised experience, Ben Thanh is Ho Chi Minh City’s biggest and most famous market. Here you can buy everything from sheets and towels to perfume and wigs.
9. Get a spa treatment
While Saigon’s sightseeing and shopping will keep you plenty busy, put some time aside for a little pampering. Drop by L’Apothiquaire for an uber indulgent range of spa treatments, Fame Nails for a mani-pedi, and Oasis Spa for a fish foot massage (just be aware of the cited potential health risks of this particular activity).
10. Enjoy sundowners at the Caravelle’s rooftop bar
Now that you’re looking and feeling fine, head up to the Caravelle Hotel’s uber famous rooftop bar Saigon Saigon for a sunset cocktail. It’s an institution dating back to 1959 and famously served as a press observation post during the Vietnam War.
For more travel inspiration, visit www.vietnam.travel.
Browse our range of Ho Chi Minh City tours and experiences here.
Do you have any suggestions to add to our list of the top things to do in Ho Chi Minh City on a first visit? We would love to hear from you. Join the conversation on our Facebook page.
Additional images: Bigstock
About the writer
Samantha Wasson is a Sydney-based freelance writer and former educator. She lived in Vietnam for three years and has travelled extensively in Asia, Europe, and the United States, with a brief sojourn in Africa. Travel highlights to date have included studying German in Freiburg, volunteering at an elephant rehabilitation project outside Chiang Mai, and travelling by motorbike through the Mekong Delta. A lover of literature and travel, Samantha subscribes to Augustine of Hippo’s observation that ‘the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page’.
About the writer
Adam Ford is editor of Top Oz Tours and Travel Ideas, and a travel TV presenter, writer, blogger, and photographer. He has travelled extensively through Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, and the Middle East. Adam worked as a travel consultant for a number of years with Flight Centre before taking up the opportunity to travel the world himself as host of the TV series Tour the World on Network Ten. He loves to experience everything a new destination has to offer and is equally at home in a five-star Palazzo in Pisa or a home-stay in Hanoi.
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