What are some day-tour highlights in Ho Chi Minh City?

There are many excellent historic sights in Ho Chi Minh City. Here are some recommendations:

Ben Thanh Market: This largest of the city's major markets is located in the downtown area. It opened in 1914 after two years of construction. The market has a wide selection of inexpensive, locally produced garments and textiles as well as items imported from the West and Eastern Europe. At one end is a "wet market" with all kinds of fresh meats, fish, fruits, and flowers.

Cho Lon District (Chinatown): Ho Chi Minh City is home to about a million ethnic Chinese, who form a major part of the private-sector economy that has been growing rapidly since Viet Nam began its shift to the "free-market" system. In 1998, the ethnic Chinese community joined other residents in celebrating the city's 300th anniversary. Known in Vietnamese as the Viet Hoa (Chinese Vietnamese), the ethnic Chinese trace their origins to Chinese immigrants who first settled during the seventeenth century on the banks of the Kinh Tau Hu Creek. The area, which was later known as Cho Lon, is home to about 500,000 people. As with other Chinese communities around the world, the Vietnamese Chinese have sought to preserve their own traditions, culture, and language. Cho Lon is a mix of large thoroughfares and narrow side streets and alleys, which, when taken together, provide the site for an exciting stroll. Visitors can see traditional medicine sellers, old temples, local Chinese restaurants, calligraphy shops, and more. They will feel they are both stepping into the past and simultaneously discovering fresh expectations and opportunities of new businesses in modern Ho Chi Minh City.



History Museum: Formerly the Blanchard de la Brosse Museum, the History Museum was built within the grounds of the Botanical Gardens in 1929, using a composite neo-Vietnamese style. It houses exhibits collected by the Ecole Française d'Extreme Orient, among others. The display includes a section on Vietnamese Ethnography.



Giac Lam Pagoda: Built in 1744, this is the oldest pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. Situated in Tan Binh District, the pagoda evokes a feeling of another world with its pungent incense, funeral tablets, and carved inscriptions. Reconstruction work was last carried out in 1900. Carved wooden pillars in the main building bear placards written in gilded nom, Viet Nam's ancient ideographic script. The biographies of monks from previous generations accompany the monks' portraits on the pagoda walls. Giac Lam Pagoda also houses beautifully carved jack wood statues of Buddha, of the reincarnations of Buddha, as well as of judges, guardians from Hell, and the Goddess of Mercy.



Ho Chi Minh Museum: This museum is housed in a fine building, which was formerly the Sai Gon Customs House. Built in 1863; it stands on the banks of the Sai Gon River and is perhaps the best preserved example of French colonial architecture in Sai Gon. Ho Chi Minh is said to have set sail from a nearby dock for France in 1911. He supported himself by serving as an assistant to the ship's cook. The museum houses documents, pictures, and collages about Ho Chi Minh's life, vision, challenges, and accomplishments.



Jade Emperor Pagoda (Chua Ngoc Hoang): Built in 1892, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, also known as the Tortoise Pagoda (Chua Phuoc Hai Tu) is dedicated to a pantheon of mythical Chinese Vietnamese divinities in a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism. This pagoda was an important meeting place for Chinese secret societies that hoped to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty in Peking. One of the most colorful pagodas in Ho Chi Minh City, it is filled with statues of various divinities and heroes. A haze of heady incense and candle smoke envelops a fascinating array of native-style wooden statues inspired by Taoism and Buddhism. The elaborately robed Taoist Jade Emperor surveys the main sanctuary, the roof of which is covered in elaborately patterned tiles.



Notre Dame Cathedral: Built between 1877 and 1883, Notre Dame Cathedral is one of Ho Chi Minh City's most famous landmarks and represents the major seat of Catholicism in southern Viet Nam. It was built in a neo-Romanesque style, using red bricks brought from Marseilles and colored glass windows made in France's Chartres Province. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1962 in honor of the-centenary of the Bishopric of Saigon. Full services in both Vietnamese and English are held every Sunday morning and are well attended by Vietnamese and foreigners alike. Other services are held throughout the week.



Re-Unification Palace (Presidential Palace): This modernistic palace of former President Nguyen Van Thieu and his predecessors is now a museum and venue for official receptions. In 1868, the French had the Norodom Palace built for the French Governor-General of Indochina, but then they moved the governor's offices to Hanoi in 1880 and used the Norodom Palace only intermittently until 1954, when the French turned it over to the Vietnamese Government of South Viet Nam. President Ngo Dinh Diem used the palace as his own luxurious residence until 1962, when two disaffected Sai Gon Army pilots dropped bombs in an assassination attempt that destroyed the Palace. Ngo Dinh Diem was not hurt. The replacement palace took four years to build and reflects the influence of American 1960s architecture, including rocket screens on the building's front. Tours of the Palace include the various meeting rooms upstairs and the basement War Room complete with radio equipment, maps, and other leftovers from the hurried surrender in 1975. The grounds contain one of the first tanks to burst through the Palace gates on 30 April 1975 as well as the fighter plane that bombed the Palace toward the end of the war. The pilot of that aircraft is now a senior officer of Vietnam Airlines.



Rue Catinat (Dong Khoi Street): Dong Khoi, a one-way street that runs from the Continental Hotel to the river, is Sai Gon's most famous street for shopping, art galleries, restaurants, and bars. The quaint shops selling souvenirs from the war are becoming a thing of the past as international retailers establish themselves in the city center. A discerning eye can still find worthwhile purchases.



Sai Gon Post Office: Located next to Notre Dame Cathedral is a magnificent French-style post office. Built between 1886 and 1891, the structure has a glass canopy with an iron frame. A huge mural with a map of Sai Gon was added at the beginning of the twentieth century. A large portrait of Ho Chi Minh looks down on the main hall.



Thien Hau Pagoda: Cantonese fishermen built this Chinese temple, which is dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, at the end of the eighteenth century. They decorated the roof with intricate ceramic friezes that have three-dimensional figures. Women often bring offerings, which they set on the altar of the Heavenly Lady. The altar features three statues of Thien Hau. Worshipers also burn paper votive offerings in a large vessel near the entrance.



War Crimes Museum: This museum displays tanks, fighter planes, other war relics, and photographs. It is popular with local groups as a means to educate children on the consequences of war and the value of peace.