Miss Saigon
We will keep this a bit short. We were ready to leave Vietnam by the time we got to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). We would have nixed it entirely if we didn’t HAVE to leave from the airport per our rigid visa stipulations.
A lot of what we had read was do Vietnam from North to South because you want to spend more time N than S and by the time you get to the south, it’s enough. That was more or less our experience, can confirm.
Had we done it the other way I’m sure we would have found more to love about HCMC but alas it was just a stopover for us which we made the best of. Here is the rundown of what we did.
Independence Palace: Our first morning we walked to the infamous palace to catch a glimpse from the outside, but curiosity prevailed and we wound up forking over the $5 to go inside. This beautiful and historically significant art deco building was an architectural treat to wander through.
War Remnants Museum: Contrastingly to the palace, we did this museum on our last day there and it made for a heavy day filled with lots of emotion, contemplation and reflection. This museum examined the war period in Vietnam with a variety of exhibits. As you can imagine, the voice and perspective of the exhibits was in contrast to much of what we had learned in America about the “Vietnam War” (of course they don’t call it that in Vietnam). It also left no doubt in our mind that war is never the answer.
A night out: Propaganda Bistro and Dot Bar made for an excellent last evening in Saigon. We mean last evening as we had already checked out of our hotel at 6:00pm and still had 4 hrs to kill before heading to the airport for our 1:20 AM departure.*
We found a gem of a hotel called the Icon Saigon. It was funny, when looking for hotels you could either have inexpensive hotels or hotels with windows, but not both. Sounded weird, and it was. But for what we wanted it worked. Our room had no outward facing windows so it felt a little cave like and was only mildly challenging when we couldn’t tell if it was raining before going to the lobby (to know if we should bring umbrellas or raincoats). It was also right across the street from a newfound ramen chain, Machida Shoten, that fast became one of Ryan’s favorite meals.
We really did love Vietnam, but a lot of that came from the charm of Hanoi and the relaxing vibes of Da Nang and Hoi An. Saigon has tons of history and we have nothing negative to say about it (and I am sure if we gave it a fair shot we would love it) but if you make it to Vietnam, we recommend prioritizing the Central and Northern regions.
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* This was our first and probably last red-eye experience. For some reason a LARGE majority of all flights to/from Asia leave super late or super early. We were trying to save money by taking the overnight flight… and paid for it with an exhausted 2+hour delay. More on that in our post about Manila.