Visiting HCM for The First Time

My sister highly recommended a trip to Vietnam from her past experience and I was intrigued. Going to Ho Chi Minh with my girlfriends is the best way to do it. We all appreciate food, beer, wine, spa, and shopping, just not so much the heat.

First stop, we went to the famous Ben Thanh Market. Ben Thanh Market was built in from 1914, is a large marketplace in central Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam in District 1. There are stalls for souvenirs, art, ceramics, t-shirts, scarves, coffee beans, tea, dried goods, fruits, produces and more.

We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta from HCM (roughly couple hours each way by bus). There are plenty of excursions to choose from prior to your trip depending on how you want to experience this famous rice basket of Vietnam. Besides their famous floating market, there are also some impressive pagodas and local orchards to visit; you will be literally surrounded by jackfruit, durian and longan trees.

Whether you enjoy night life or not, you should check out Bui Vien Street. Bui Vien Street is the main street of the so called ‘backpackers area’ of Ho Chi Minh City. You can shop, dine, party and people watch on Bui Vien Street. This place doesn’t sleep and there is loud music from all directions. However, if you are with kids, please keep them in the hotel instead. Bui Vien Street can also be very dangerous since it doesn’t quite have pedestrian path, bars would lay tables and chairs on the sidewalk, motorcycles going in all directions, street performers as young as 12 or 13 would spray gasoline fire as their act.

Few other places you should visit are Central Post Office, Notre Dame Square, Opera House. But of all those places, you must not miss the War Remnants Museum. The War Remnants Museum was extremely insightful, and would give you an entirely different view of the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective. I was moved by the evidence of all the horrific events and the photos were heartbreaking. It offers a raw glimpse of all that the US did to the Vietnamese. Definitely worth visiting and you can only experience it yourself.