Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is considered as a glamorous land because of its splendid appearance, this place has many things to explore and experience. After all, people love Saigon more day by day due to the overlap of both magnificent, charming things and simple, close, familiar things. In the event of your only a few days in this city, here are the top 11 things to do in Ho Chi Minh City.
1, Visiting and taking of pictures at the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica
This is an unique religious architecture building from French domination period which is designed by the architect J.Bourard with the entire building materials from cement, iron and steel to screw which are considered having source from France.
The Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica is a tourist destination of not only Saigonese but also a lot of international tourists. Everyday, there are hundreds of foreign tourist groups to visit, photograph and join ceremony at this Cathedral.
2, Shopping at the Ben Thanh Market
The Ben Thanh Market is considered as a symbol, an interesting destination for both foreign tourists and locals. Strolling around to go to shopping and explore Ben Thanh Market has become an integral part in any Saigon tours.
The Market is located at one of the most important positions.
This is a propitious condition for trade exchange activities taking place lively, bustling. This is not only a cultural icon, attraction of tourists to Saigon but also a place where you can find out almost everything from common to rare, from affordable to high-end such as clothing, jewelry, supplies, souvenirs, candy, fruit…
Read more: “Saigon shopping guide – what to buy in Ho Chi Minh city?”
3, Seeing Saigon from on high
Stand from a high space with long-range binoculars which can rotate horizontal 360 degrees and turn up and down an angle of 50 degrees that means you see the panoramic view of city in positions that naked eye can’t see.
The South’s most beautiful and dynamic city will show up with a unique appearance when seeing from a height of 178m on the Saigon SkyDeck Observatory.
4, Enjoying a variety of delicious dishes
Saigon has many special dishes from different regions such as broken rice, rice noodle with pork and seafood, mixture rice paper, Vietnamese grilled pork & rice noodles and summer roll. A lot of tourists are in love this place because of these.
However, in the event of coming to Saigon without enjoying snail dishes, that is an omission. Don’t need go to sea, you can still find out several fresh snail dishes from different regions and they are prepared in many different ways. How attractive and interesting is!
5, Seeing concert in tearoom
It is said that coming to Saigon is to drink coffee everyday and coming to tearoom is to listen to music weekly. Activities in tearoom of Saigon are considered as a “specialty”. Each tearoom has a different music style so depend on demand of each individual, let’s opt for a suitable tearoom.
For example, “the Khong Ten Tearoom” at 112 Le Thanh Ton, Ben Thanh Ward, District 1 mainly invites the young starts such as Quang Dung, My Tam, Thanh Thao, Hien Thuc and so on…
6, Visiting the walking Nguyen Hue Street
This is considered as the heart of District 1 road as it’s very busy. Starting from 18:00 daily, most of gadget stores, coffee shops on both two sides are very crowded.
From the day of operation, there are many passers-by even some apartments quickly open shops for drinking and eating snacks to meet demand. In the evening, this place is crowded and bustling completely. The walking street is also connected to the Metro station, Saigon Opera House and Square in the Thu Thiem urban area (District 2) in the future.
7, Visiting the Independence Palace
The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi and the Independence palace in Saigon are the power symbols of the old regime and the symbols of victory, peace and unification of the South &North in the new regime.
Experiencing the ups and downs of history, now the Independence Palace is not only a valuable historic relic but also an unmissable destination with tourists in Saigon.
8, Visiting the Saigon Central Post Office
Have you ever visited this Saigon Central Post Office? How do you feel about its classic beauty? When visiting Saigon, don’t just skim this place and take a picture only. Let you be a moonstruck guy in the modern society in order to miss email, messages and try to write a letter, buy a stamp to get the feeling of putting letter into post-box like childhood.
9, Enjoying coffee on the flat ground
Young Saigoneses have to never envy with the church lemon tea shop, the Dao Duy Tu lemon tea shop or the Trieu Viet Vuong coffee street of Hanoi due to coffee on the flat ground of Saigon.
Don’t need a luxurious set of desk and chair or menu with kinds of coffees having luxurious names, you just need a glass of iced black or brown coffee and a bag of mixture rice paper for a leisurely afternoon with comfort, happiness filling in your soul.
10, Enjoying mixture rice paper recipe
Don’t say that you used to come to Saigon, if you haven’t ever eaten mixture rice paper because you will be considered as traveling Hanoi but don’t eat rice noodle soup and don’t eat sliced pork rolled with rice paper in Danang.
Or to be exact that in the event of being asked which food represents for the spirit of Saigon the most? That’s mixture rice paper. It’s representative of a vibrant and diverse but harmonious Saigon. Therefore, when visiting Saigon, don’t forget to enjoy this dish!
11, Enjoying Saigon bread
Every street, corner and alley of Saigon also have the presence of bakeries, street food stalls, street food shoulder poles and metal rolling carts. Ham bread, sandwich with pâté, fried chopped fish ball with bread, Vietnamese fried egg bread….all have become the typical dishes of Saigon even being famous everywhere. Bread with crispy crust, soft but fluffy bread crumbs and tasty, fragrant stuffing will be one of the great things so that you miss about Saigon.