HO CHI MINH CITY ⇒ TRAVEL GUIDE & ATTRACTIONS

2. Jade Emperor Pagoda – Phước Hải Tự (Taoist Pagoda)

Jade Emperor Pagoda was build in early 20th century now located in the center of the busy Saigon city with a very unique ancient structure attracting a large number of tourists every day. The pagoda named after the Taaoist god, the Jade Emperor, Ngoc Hoang. Vietnamese visit this pagoda to pray for luck and peace. At first, the Pagoda was built by a Chinese person named Luu Minh who was originally a merchant resided in Saigon. In 1984, this temple was renamed Phuoc Hai but the indigenous people were still used to being called Ngoc Hoang. This place attracts a lot of visitors on daily basis, not only on festivals, the first day or the full moon day of every month. Because, many people spread each other that this temple is very sacred, so tourists often come here to pray for luck, peace, prayer for predestined and pray for children. In particular, this temple was visited by US President Obama on May 24, 2016, from which its reputation became more and more popular.

3. Ho Chi Minh City Notre Dame Cathedral and central post office

Built between 1877 and 1883, Notre Dame Cathedral rises up romantically from the heart of HCMC’s government quarter, facing Ð Dong Khoi. A brick, neo-Romanesque church with two 40m-high square towers tipped with iron spires, the Catholic cathedral is named after the Virgin Mary. The walls of the interior are inlaid with devotional tablets and some stained glass survives. English-speaking staff dispense tourist information from 9am to 11am Monday to Saturday. If the front gates are locked, try the door on the side of the building that faces Reunification Palace.

Right across the way from Notre Dame Cathedral, HCMC’s striking French post office is a period classic, designed by Gustave Eiffel and built between 1886 and 1891. Painted on the walls of its grand concourse are fascinating historic maps of South Vietnam, Saigon and Cholon, while a mosaic of Ho Chi Minh takes pride of place at the end of its barrel-vaulted hall. Note the magnificent tiled floor of the interior and the copious green-painted wrought iron.

4. Giac Lam Pagoda – Chùa Giác Lâm – Oldest in Ho Chi Minh City

Locally believed to be among the top 3 oldest temples in Ho Chi Minh City. According to the records, the first building of what is now called Giac Lam Pagoda was first build around mid 17th century. The Chinese symbols are seen around the temple which by means clarifying the purity and feeling the temple in heavenly way. There is also a looming Bodhi tree, known as the fig tree dedicated to sacred to Buddha in the front entrance which was brunt to the temple back in 1960 by a Sri Lankan monk.

Giac Lam Pagoda was built by layman Ly Thuy Long, from Minh Huong during the reign of Lord Nguyen Phuc Khoat. In the pagoda there are 113 ancient statues, mainly wooden statues, and an additional 7 bronze statues. There are many valuable statues such as: Statues of Amitabha Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and Maitreya Bodhisattva; The Bodhisattva Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, the Nine Dragon statue set (cast in bronze), the Eighteen Arhat statue set, the Ten Palace Hell King statue, the Patriarch Bodhisattva statue, the Dragon King statue , etc… On the main pillars of the pagoda, there are parallel sentences (including 86 sentences) carved with elaborate gilding. Notably, there are parallel sentences of Hiep Trinh Hoai Duc (hanging in the Patriarch’s worship space) and couplets of Moc An’s disciples worshiping in the 3rd year of Gia Long (1804). In addition, there are 9 blue envelopes, 19 horizontal panels, an ancient altar and ancient worshiping objects.

5. Reunification Palace – Top choice in Ho Chi Minh City

Locally known as Thong Nhat or Independence Palace, is a famous historic landmark initially built for the French governor in late 18th century. The Reunification palace is definitely worth a visit since the historic palace was ranked as one of the first 10 special national monuments of Vietnam in 2009, which was visited by a large number of domestic and foreign tourists.

Saigon Reunification palace is also known for other names such as Independence Palace, Governor Palace, Unified Hall and the Norodom Palace. The palace was designed by architect Ngo Viet Thu and Dinh was started construction on July 1, 1962, inaugurated on October 31, 1966. He combined harmoniously between modern architectural art and traditional Eastern architecture into the project. This was once the residence and work of the President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the war. The palace was built on an area of 12 hectares, about 100 rooms, including 3 main floors, two mezzanines, one terrace and basement.

The Reunification palace was seized by the armies of South Vietnam on the day of 30 April 1975 and since then the history of the palace is deeply tied up with the history of the modern Ho Chi Minh City.

6. Nguyen Hue Street and City Hall – People’s Committee Building

Nguyen Hue street is hosting the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee headquarters is one of the classic architectural works in Ho Chi Minh City, built from 1898 to 1908, inaugurated in 1909. During the French colonial period, this building was called Hôtel de ville in French or Dinh Xa Tay in Vietnamese. During the Republic of Vietnam, it was called Saigon City Hall because it was the working and meeting place of the government’s officials. Since the day of Vietnam’s unification until now, the building has been the workplace of the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, the People’s Council of Ho Chi Minh City and a number of other agencies.

7. Bitexco Financial Tower – Ho Chi Minh City

The 68-storey, 262m-high, Carlos Zapata-designed skyscraper dwarfs all around it. It’s meant to be shaped like a lotus bulb, but a CD rack with a tambourine shoved into it also springs to mind. That tambourine is the 48th-floor Saigon Skydeck , with a helipad on its roof. The views are, of course, extraordinary but not weather-proof, so choose a clear day and aim for sunset (or up-end a drink in the Alto Heli Bar instead).

8. Cu Chi Tunnels – Top Choice for day trip from Ho Chi Minh City

Cu Chi Tunnels are worth a day trip from Ho Chi Minh City and that can be best visited on a day tour. The underground tunnels are a defensive system located some 70 km west of Ho Chi Minh City. This underground tunnels was the ideas of Vietnam Resistance and the National Liberation forces of the South Vietnam during the Indochina and the Vietnam War. The tunnel system includes clinics, many rooms, kitchen, warehouse, office and they are rigged some 250 km long with ventilation systems at the bushes.

The tunnels of Cu Chi were built over a period of 25 years that began sometime in the late 1940s. They were the improvised response of a poorly equipped peasant army to its enemy’s high-tech ordnance, helicopters, artillery, bombers and chemical weapons. The Viet Minh built the first dugouts and tunnels in the hard, red earth of Cu Chi (ideal for their construction) during the war against the French. The excavations were used mostly for communication between villages and to evade French army sweeps of the area.

When the VC’s National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgency began in earnest around 1960, the old Viet Minh tunnels were repaired and new extensions were excavated. Within a few years the tunnel system assumed enormous strategic importance, and most of Cu Chi district and the nearby area came under firm VC control. In addition Cu Chi was used as a base for infiltrating intelligence agents and sabotage teams into Saigon. The stunning attacks in the South Vietnamese capital during the 1968 Tet Offensive were planned and launched from Cu Chi.

In early 1963 the Diem government implemented the botched Strategic Hamlets Program, under which fortified encampments, surrounded by many rows of sharp bamboo spikes, were built to house people who had been ‘relocated’ from communist-controlled areas. The first strategic hamlet was in Ben Cat district, next to Cu Chi. Not only was the programme carried out with incredible incompetence, alienating the peasantry, but the VC launched a major effort to defeat it. The VC were able to tunnel into the hamlets and control them from within. By the end of 1963 the first showpiece hamlet had been overrun.

The series of setbacks and defeats suffered by the South Vietnamese forces in the Cu Chi area rendered a complete VC victory by the end of 1965 a distinct possibility. In the early months of that year, the guerrillas boldly held a victory parade in the middle of Cu Chi town. VC strength in and around Cu Chi was one of the reasons the Johnson administration decided to involve US troops in the war.

To deal with the threat posed by VC control of an area so near the South Vietnamese capital, one of the USA’s first actions was to establish a large base camp in Cu Chi district. Unknowingly, they built it right on top of an existing tunnel network. It took months for the 25th Division to figure out why they kept getting shot at in their tents at night.

The US and Australian troops tried a variety of methods to ‘pacify’ the area around Cu Chi, which came to be known as the Iron Triangle. They launched large-scale ground operations involving tens of thousands of troops but failed to locate the tunnels. To deny the VC cover and supplies, rice paddies were defoliated, huge swathes of jungle bulldozed, and villages evacuated and razed. The Americans also sprayed chemical defoliants on the area aerially and a few months later ignited the tinder-dry vegetation with gasoline and napalm. But the intense heat interacted with the wet tropical air in such a way as to create cloudbursts that extinguished the fires. The VC remained safe and sound in their tunnels.

Unable to win this battle with chemicals, the US army began sending men down into the tunnels. These ‘tunnel rats’, who were often involved in underground fire fights, sustained appallingly high casualty rates. When the Americans began using German shepherd dogs, trained to use their keen sense of smell to locate trapdoors and guerrillas, the VC began washing with American soap, which gave off a scent the canines identified as friendly. Captured US uniforms were put out to confuse the dogs further. Most importantly, the dogs were not able to spot booby traps. So many dogs were killed or maimed that their horrified handlers then refused to send them into the tunnels.

The USA declared Cu Chi a free-strike zone: little authorisation was needed to shoot at anything in the area, random artillery was fired into the area at night, and pilots were told to drop unused bombs and napalm there before returning to base. But the VC stayed put. Finally, in the late 1960s, American B-52s carpet-bombed the whole area, destroying most of the tunnels along with everything else around. The gesture was militarily useless by then because the USA was already on its way out of the war. The tunnels had served their purpose. The VC guerrillas serving in the tunnels lived in extremely difficult conditions and suffered horrific casualties. Only about 6000 of the 16, 000 cadres who fought in the tunnels survived the war. Thousands of civilians in the area were killed. Their tenacity was extraordinary considering the bombings, the pressures of living underground for weeks or months at a time and the deaths of countless friends and comrades.

The villages of Cu Chi have since been presented with numerous honorific awards, decorations and citations by the government, and many have been declared ‘heroic villages’. Since 1975 new hamlets have been established and the population of the area has more than doubled; however, chemical defoliants remain in the soil and water, and crop yields are still poor.

The Tunnels of Cu Chi, by Tom Mangold and John Penycate, is a wonderful work documenting the story of the tunnels and the people involved on both sides.

9. Ben Thanh Market – Most See in Ho Chi Minh City

The most central of all the markets in Ho Chi Minh City, teeming Ben Thanh and its surrounding streets comprise one of the city’s liveliest areas. Everything that’s commonly eaten, worn or used by the Saigonese is piled high: vegetables, dried fruit, meats, spices, scorpions in alcohol, sweets, tobacco, clothing, one-day suits, wristwatches, blingtastic jewellery, hardware and more spill forth from a profusion of stalls. Souvenir and tourists items can be found in equal abundance. Vendors are determined and prices usually higher than elsewhere, so bargain vigorously (although some stalls have ‘Fixed Price’ signs).

10. Cao Dai Holy Temple – Tay Ninh

The Tay Ninh Holy See is the center of Cao Dai religion, established after the Full Moon Opening Ceremony at the year of Tiger (November 19, 1926). Currently, this is also the largest temple organization of the Cao Dai religion, managing over 3/5 of Cao Dai followers worldwide, or more than 2.5 million followers. The Central Tay Ninh temple is located at Tay Ninh Holy See in Hoa Thanh town, Tay Ninh province, near Ho Chi Minh City.

Tay Ninh Holy See site and Cu Chi are often visited together in a day tour from Ho Chi Minh City.

Basically, the Tay Ninh Holy See converges many unique architectures from many religious works from around the world. This is also a work that clearly demonstrates the principles of Cao Dai Buddhism. The Holy See has an actual size of 97.5m long and 22m wide, similar to the bell tower system in Catholic churches. In the middle, the Tay Ninh Holy See is designed with the Maitreya Buddha statue occupying the roof.