Dodging Traffic in Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
10.8231°N, 106.6297°E

Vietnam was atop our “must-see” list when Sarah and I were planning our Asia travel. But we really didn’t know exactly why.

We both love Vietnamese food and heard that its natural landscape is spectacular. Friends with families from Vietnam or that have traveled there in the past all told us it was one of their favorite destinations. It’s the country we’ve arguably heard more about than any other place in the world, whether in history classes, books, movies, or music. But we couldn’t pinpoint exactly why we were so eager to see Vietnam.

In part, I think we were excited to be somewhere so incredibly different from our surroundings back home. Many of the areas where we stayed in Fiji, Indonesia, and Malaysia cater to western tourists. Australia and New Zealand are of course English-speaking countries with many of the same western comforts we have in Boston. We knew Vietnam was going to be something completely different.

First Stop, Ho Chi Minh

The first leg of our Vietnam trip began in Ho Chi Minh City. After making our way out of the airport and struggling a bit with communicating to the cab driver where we wanted to go, we headed off to our Airbnb in the Ben Thanh area of the city.

The city of Ho Chi Minh has had several names over its long history. Many locals still refer to it as Saigon, its official name before 1975 when the North Vietnamese government took over the south (Ho Chi Minh was the first president of North Vietnam). From what we observed the names Saigon and Ho Chi Minh are used interchangeably around the city.

Ho Chi Minh is the most populated city in Vietnam, with close to 11 million inhabitants. Flying into the city provides a decent view of the expansiveness of the city, although for a city its size it has relatively few tall buildings dotting the city’s skyline. Most of Ho Chi Minh’s economy is driven by the industrial and service sectors, although we learned there is a push here in recent years to make the city more attractive to technology companies and entrepreneurs.

Driving into the city you can’t help but observe the complete chaos of the roads. While Bali prepared us for being surrounded by speeding mopeds, Ho Chi Minh takes this motorbike madness to the next level. People are very literally bumping into each other on their scooters, which are regularly driven up on the sidewalks to avoid congestion on the crowded roads. It’s nuts.

Most motorbike drivers wear masks to protect against the fumes, as well as long clothes to protect against the sun. The largest intersections have what can best be described as “optional” traffic lights, and crossing the street as a pedestrian makes you feel as if you should be wearing a helmet.

There are estimates that there are as many scooters in the city as people. That doesn’t factor in cars, trucks, bikes, and “cyclos”, the bike taxis found in most of the tourist areas in the city. Sarah and I couldn’t bring ourselves to pushed around the city in a cyclo, which are essentially strollers for adults.

Fortunately our Airbnb was located off of the main road, in an alley lined with small cafes, shops, and older women selling pho (a type of rice noodle soup) out of their street carts. Our place was located above a men’s clothing store and across from a five-story residential building with a spa on the first floor.

The apartment was only about 50 yards from a very busy street, but the alley was relatively quiet and secluded. The alley also gave us a few minutes to mentally prepare for walking down the main road. Our host didn’t speak English, but was very friendly and able to communicate everything we needed to know via hand gestures.

We were very pleased that the air conditioning unit in our room worked well and I don’t think we turned it off once during our stay. April is the hottest month in the south of Vietnam, and temperatures during the day got into the upper 90’s. This was before accounting for the humidity, which easily made it feel like it was in the triple digits. It was hot. Or as Sarah described it, “wicked steamy”.

Eating the Street 

The Ben Thahn neighborhood is in District 1 of the city, and many of the most frequented tourist spots were within walking distance of our place. My personal favorite was the Ben Thanh Street Food Market, which is a canopied area that has dozens of Vietnamese food stands all in one place. Sarah and I had a few meals here, including some of the best pork ribs we’ve ever had.

In addition to all of the “street meat” we ate in Saigon, we visited a few outdoor cafes where you sit on tiny plastic stools on the sidewalk. Bui Vien Street is known for its great food, street entertainment and incredible people watching. After dinner one night we sat in the window of a local restaurant and had some Saigon Beers (about 50 cents each!) while watching the craziness unfold as the night progressed.

We also spent a lot of time in the famous Ben Thanh Market, just down the street from the much newer Ben Thanh Street Food Market.

The Ben Thanh Market is a completely enclosed structure and absolutely massive. Inside there are vendors selling everything from jewelry to shampoo to live crabs and fish heads. The city’s centralized marketplace has been around in some form since the 1600’s, and the current building has been around for more than 100 years.

A Palace, Temple, and Church

To see the city’s major destinations we took a bus tour of Ho Chi Minh on our second day. The tour focused mostly on the last 50 years of the city’s history. We visited the War Remnants Museum as part of the tour, which very graphically details the North Vietnamese experience during the Vietnam War. We took a tour of Independence Palace, the home of the former president of South Vietnam and where in 1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through its front gate marking the end of the Vietnam War.

We also visited the Thien Hau Temple, which was built by Chinese immigrants roughly 250 years ago. Visitors to the temple can write wishes on small pieces of paper that are then slowly burned with incense candles hanging in the temple’s courtyard. The smoke from the incense burning throughout the temple made for some cool photos.

Our last stop on the tour was the Notre Dame Cathedral located across the street from the Saigon Central Post Office. The cathedral was built by French colonists in the late 1800’s during their occupation of Vietnam. The influence of the French and their architecture can be seen in the cathedral, the Central Post Office and numerous other buildings in Ho Chi Minh.

As nice as it was to see the French architecture, my personal opinion is that the more consequential outcome of the French colonists in Vietnam is their introduction of the baguette. My favorite Vietnamese food (so far) is banh mi, which is a sandwich on a baguette stuffed with various types of meat. They typically cost a dollar or less from the street vendors, and are absolutely delicious!

Heading North

Saigon is a city that could take someone years to explore full time, without ever being able to see all it has to offer. We were a little unsure if four days here would be enough, and after day three we couldn’t decide if we wanted to stay for another month or never return again. There is just so much thrown at you as you walk the streets its hard to process everything in a few days to be able to make a decision about the city. It would be like trying to offer an opinion of New York City after spending just a couple days in midtown Manhattan. Regardless, we were definitely ready to move on to a smaller and quieter place, somewhere where a life insurance policy wasn’t needed to cross the street.

Our plan was to head up the coast on Vietnam Railways, to the coastal town of Da Nang. We headed to the Saigon Railway Station to catch our overnight train north.