Ho Chi Minh City travel info

Seven in the morning at the mouth of a District 1 alley. Pork chops sizzle over charcoal, and office workers on plastic stools splash fish sauce over plates of broken rice. On the main road out front, the scooters are already flowing like a river: a man eating banh mi on his way to work, a mum with one kid in front and one behind, a guy with a fridge strapped to the back seat. In this city, everything starts on the street.

Most people still call it Saigon. It's Vietnam's biggest, busiest city, where glass towers rise beside the yellow French-era Central Post Office and City Hall, and where families and buskers pour onto the Nguyen Hue pedestrian boulevard after dark. Go up to a rooftop bar and the lit-up bridges and towers along the Saigon River are laid out below you. Backpacker strip Bui Vien throbs with music every night, while in Cholon, the old Chinatown, coils of incense hang smoking from temple ceilings.

The food is southern: sweeter and more generous than Hanoi's. Broken rice with grilled pork, hu tieu noodles in a shrimp-and-pork broth, crackling banh xeo pancakes bigger than your hand, and the snail-and-clam joints that fill the alleys at night. It's 31–35°C by day all year, so T-shirts are all you need. The city's first metro line opened at the end of 2024, so you can now ride a train from Ben Thanh Market out to Thao Dien instead of braving the traffic.

Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)