"HCM, A Beautiful Hist ..." a Ho Chi Minh City Travel Page by 43beckos

The centre of HCM contains some beautiful acknowledgements to the countries French heritage, and in fact has it's own Notre Dame cathedral which is extremely similar, if somewhat smaller, to it's Seine side counterpart. You will notice that the ctahedral has no stained glass windows, which were a casualty of world war II and have never been replaced. The cathedral is situated at the north end of the D Han Thuyen, and is right next to HCM Central Post Office which may not be somehere you would think of as a must see, but i urge you to visit this building, which has to be the most ornate post office in the world. (See tip on things to see)

The first thing that struck me about HCM, was the vast amount of traffic, particularly bikes, there is on the cities streets.

The traffic seems to follow no particular lane system, which make the whole concept of driving very scary for the visitor. That said, all of the drivers seemed very good natured to each other, and we only saw an accident once.

I would recommend for the sake of your nerves though that you sit in the back seat of the taxi.

Another unusual sight on the city streets is the number of well restored vintage cars, which are obvioulsy very lovingly tended to.