Ho Chi Minh City Things to Do Tips by yeeman999

I think other postings pretty much have everything covered regarding CuChi Tunnel. All I can say is the trip is a great lesson to learn and definitely a must-see. Should pair it up with the War Remnant Museum as a re-cap.

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It is a great lesson to learn how the war was being told from a different perspective. Do prepare for the unexpected. Photos are quite violent and brutal. They even show specimen of deformed babies. This trip gives me a true reflection of how little do I know about the history.

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A full day activity starting off at 8am. In addition it takes 2 hrs to go to the pier (and another 2 hrs back) so we had a high expectation to it. But it turned out pretty disappointing.

1) Scenery is definitely not "romantic" as some may describe. The Saigon in Hong Kong definitely is better. I can hardly name anything remarkable regarding the scenery

2) There's a short island trip included in the tour. The tour guide took us to see some of the tropical fruits that are not at all exciting for someone who was raised in Asia. There was a brief stay at a local cafe which was obviously a stop for souvenirs. I was shown natural honey and dried fruit that regrettably very common across Asia.

3) A stop at coconut candy making site which is an open space for tourist to see how they make coconut candy. 20,000 dongs/ pack, buy 5 get 1 free. No bargaining margin but I guess it's a reasonable price. Don't pay in USD it's a rip-off.

4) A stop at another cafe where local musicians perform Vietnamese music -- you wish. They perform Japanese and Korean songs alternatively with only one Vietnamese song in their list.

5) Lunch at local restaurant. We ordered Coconut steamed prawns which turned out to be regular steamed shrimps. Giang Yang Fried Rice which disappointedly was a very dry version of the Chinese Yang Chou Fried Rice. Not satisified but whatever. The lunch (including 1 drink) costed each of us approx USD 10.

6) Another short boat trip on "sanpan" meant to "see how local people live" but in reality it is them rowing your boat to let you see how they make money from you. Couple of the boats passed by us would make special remark with a dollar note (USD) so to remind us to tip our rowers. I tipped my rower not because I was reminded but because she is such a cute little girl. (And that upset me because girl of her age should be at school rather than rowing boats for the tourists)

And that is!

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This is a place where you can easily kill several good hours. Do not settle with the first stall you see, always try to shop around as they all sell similar stuff. I think one of the postings here provides a very good bargaining technique. I am not very good at it but if you can follow closely with that the posting says and be a bit more aggressive, you can definitely get more than what you want.

I must write a bit about the delicious food found in Ben Thanh Market. The center of the market is booths of food stall that provide different kind of VN yummiesss. Some of them have pictures on menu which makes ordering 10x easier. People who operate the food stall are friendly and the stalls were more hygienic than we would have thought. Watch out for people who randonly offer you fans.

Watch out for taxi waiting outside of the market. See my Taxi Trap posting on it.

Market closes at 6pm, but things will be opened outside the market afterwards. I didn't get the chance to check it out but if you have the time -- please do so!

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Directions: District 1