Ho Chi Minh City: Goodbye Vietnam!
- Esther
- Nov 25, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
After an incredible three weeks exploring Vietnam, we’ve arrived at our final stop; Ho Chi Minh City.
Ho Chi Minh is an enormous place and we didn’t have that much time to explore it, so we decided to start by taking a look at the main landmarks with a guide from Saigon City Tours; a student-run organisation which gives tourists a free tour of the city while helping Vietnamese students to improve their English.
Our guide was really friendly and she took us to some of the city’s most impressive landmarks, like the Municipal Theatre, the famous Notre-Dame Cathedral and its enormous Central Post Office.
We were definitely glad we explored the city properly on our first day in Ho Chi Minh because - thanks to typhoon Usagi - we found ourselves stuck in torrential rain for the whole of the next day!
The rain basically made it pretty difficult to do anything other than stay inside and wait for it to stop. When we finally ventured out of our hostel to go to the food court and cinema (wearing the huge rain ponchos I’d hoped we’d never need!), we were literally wading through knee-deep waters in the middle of the roads (and having to dodge a lot of floating litter as well!)
Sadly, the rain also ended up interrupting our day trip to the Mekong Delta, which the guides had to turn at the last minute into a trip to a coconut candy factory (because by the time we'd finished our coach journey to the delta, it was raining too hard for us to be allowed on the boat).
Still, I can’t complain about the weather too much because we've been extremely lucky with the sunshine for most of our trip - and at least being stuck in a typhoon was a memorable experience!
The rain also cleared up in time just for our trip to the Cu Chi tunnels; a huge network of connecting tunnels which were used by Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war.
On our final night, we finished off our trip to Ho Chi Minh by enjoying happy hour in the glamorous Eon Heli rooftop bar, which was on the 52nd floor of the Bitexco Financial Tower.
The vibe there was really happy and chilled, and we also had an incredible panoramic view of Ho Chi Minh.
And that brings our stay in Vietnam to a close.
Travelling Vietnam has been an incredible experience and I’m so glad we took three full weeks to explore it properly.
Every city we’ve been to in this country has been so different from the others. I feel like we’ve experienced a little bit of everything here; beautiful beaches, deserts, peaceful mountain valleys and chaotic city life. Since arriving in Ho Chi Minh, I can now also say I've experienced both the best and the worst of Vietnamese weather!
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