Ho Chi Minh City

Ho chi Minh city

Having visited Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Danang and Hoi An on our way through Vietnam, I was most anxious about Ho Chi Minh City. Personally, I dislike large cities in general. I think (based on absolutely no research) that the size of the city is in proportion to how unwelcoming the locals tend to be. Also, many of the people we spoke to would warn us about the crime and muggings etc in Vietnam’s largest city. Our experience couldn’t have been further from the truth.

With the exception of being overcharged about 50p on a taxi ride, our experience was a very pleasant one. Being in a big city, everything seemed to travel faster and adopting the road-crossing technique of Hanoi would have been a huge mistake. The large arterial roads still carried largely uncontrolled traffic in waves in what looked like chaos but we didn’t see any accidents at all in our 4 days there - but made sure to pay attention to the pedestrian crossings - something many motorists didn’t bother with!

The city was hot and in places quite pungent but once used to it and having got our bearings, we were able to navigate around safely.

For the first full day, we made a trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels where, we were shown the guerrilla warfare traps and tactics of the Viet Cong. This was both fascinating and scary in equal measure. Some of the traps and ‘techniques’ that were employed to win the war were brutal - however I don’t want to go into detail about the war, suffice to say that there were clearly atrocities on both sides but it was hard not to empathise with the Vietnamese when speaking to them about their past.

Back in Ho Chi Minh, the hustle and bustle was constant, with car and moped horns tooting and squeezing against one another out all the time - with the occasional and frankly useless bicycle bell sounding out for good measure.

Nightlife

When on holiday, I have noticed that an extremely popular pastime of almost all tourists is to climb a tower, take a few images from the top and return to ground level, then head to a cafe to discuss what to climb next! For us, this is the case too and has now become a running joke. Having had very few opportunities to get a high vantage point, I consulted my friend Google for the best rooftop bars in Vietnam.

The Rex Hotel “was made famous during the Vietnam War when it was hosting the American military command‘s daily conference, derisively named Five O‘Clock Follies by cynical journalists who‘d find the optimism of the American officers to be misguided. Its rooftop bar was a well-known hangout spot for military officials and war correspondents.” (Wikipedia). While not the highest at 5 storeys up, this was a great spot for some elevated drinking over a busy junction so as not to stray too far from the cities constant ebb and flow!

The Lotus Building (or more sexy-sounding Bitexco Financial Tower!) was the tallest building in Vietnam until 2011 and was knocked into 3rd place more recently (2014) but the helipad and Sky Bar on the 52nd floor offer some amazing views over the city, day or night.

The A&B Tower with their smart-casual dress code sent us away as flip-flops were not allowed but I managed to coerce Sarah into returning with me 30 minutes later (fractionally less cheery then she had been on our first attempt) for what was a couple of amazing cocktails and a view towards the financial district of Ho Chi Minh, and a perfect way to see the full scale of the Lotus Building among its puny surroundings as well as overlooking the Bến Thành traffic circle.

people of Ho Chi Minh

In general, as with other places in Vietnam, people were happy to be photographed. It was pretty uncommon for people to indicate that they were not keen on being ‘papped’. If they noticed me, they would normally beam a smile or some sort of pose, otherwise, ignore me and carry on with whatever they were up to before they noticed me.