TRIP TO HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM - THE ITINERARY, PART 1 - TOURIST ATTRACTION

We did a small research about places that we were going to visit at our free time in the office. Google, Youtube and Instagram are the best platform to find many tourist attractions and culinary places in Vietnam. 6 days and 5 nights weren't a short time to explore the city. We divided those list of places to three categories, those are tourist attractions, cafe/restaurant, and the culinary sections. Tourist attractions is easy to found by searching “places to visit in Ho Chi Minh City” on google, there are many very nice buildings with French architecture style because Vietnam had a long history with France colonization. So, beautiful art deco detail clearly was seen in every angle of the city. As an interior designer, visiting well design cafe is a must. Luckily, we found an instagram account who is doing a review about restaurants, cafe, or beautiful places to visit in Vietnam. They provide as we want to know, the username is @nhcuacoffeeholic, I bet they will help you a lot for the references. We scrolled the feed and tagged some interesting places to be our list. For the culinary places, I was suggested to watch youtube videos, it was from Best Ever Food Review Show’ and Mark Wiens’ videos for the episodes in Ho Chi Minh City. Although they are not review about the halal food, I guess that I had to watch some videos so I knew about the ingredients which are used the most for the Vietnamese food. I could take a note for some foods which I couldn’t eat.

Tourist Attraction

I believe there are many places of tourist attraction to visit but I want to share here is about places that I visited in the trip, here it is:

1. Turtle Lake

29th of April, the same day that we landed in Vietnam, we experienced the night market in a place called Turtle Lake, that is a small lake where Vietnamese usually spend their night together with friends or family. There are many food stalls which sell vietnamese snacks. I am forgot about the name, one of them was a rice paper with a bunch of vegetable and vietnamese sauce (I guess that was a kind of fish sauce), also there were a fresh mango and coconut.

2. Basilica Notre Dame Saigon - Saigon Central Post Office

We visited it in The Notre Dame at the first day (we arrived at monday evening, so I assumed that the next day, Tuesday, is the first day to explore). Unluckily, we only could see the cathedral from the outside the wall and we immediately moved to The Saigon Central Post Office across because we couldn’t stand in open space any longer with the temperature was 38-39 degree but it felt like 42 degree. The Saigon Central Post Office is unique, I thought it was unused post office, but actually there are correspondence activities. We can buy a postcard, then send it to the people at home as an exclusive souvenir.

3. Tan Dinh Church

One of destination for enjoying the architecture of the building. The color of the church’s facade is all pink so they call it The Pink Church. We could explore at the terrace of the building. But I quietly took a picture of the interior from the window.

4. Museum of Ho Chi Minh City

The museum is about history of the city in the era of war until now.

5. Saigon Opera House

One of architecture that I wish we have it in Indonesia. Unfortunately we couldn’t experience inside and watch the show. The ticket might be expensive and we couldn’t afford even for one ticket. The european architecture style clearly has been seen in the facade of building. The vibe of the area was so nice with the road where we could walk comfortably.

6. The Cafe Apartment

The name of the place explained that this was an apartment which they have changed the function of each room into the cafes. The location is in the centre of the city. We can see a large park in front of the building like the plaza in Kota Tua. The idea is so great for changing the function of residential to f&b place.

7. Fito Museum

It is a museum about traditional medicine. We wanted to come because the picture that we found on internet was interesting. But we missed to check the ticket on the internet, we found that the ticket too expensive for us. So, some of us decided to buy a traditional medicine there.

8. Thien Hau Temple

9. Binh Tay Market

The thing that I could remember is the temperature which is so humid. The reason why we wanted to visit the market was because a review in the youtube. This market is rarely known by tourist because most of tourist will visit Ben Thanh Market for buying some stuffs as souvenir. Binh Tay Market is bigger that Ben Thanh Market. They provide miscellaneous stuffs which is organized in categories, for example in the first floor is clothing and in the second floor is food, etc.

10. Ben Thanh Market

I bought souvenirs here, such as soft dried mango, coffee (because Vietnamese Coffee is very delicious), etc. Surprisingly, almost all the seller could speak in malay which is quietly similar with bahasa. Moreover I use the hijab so they thought that I am Malaysian too.

11.  San Art Museum

We found the San Art when we googled about gallery in HCMC. The location is near the apartment where we stayed. The unexpected location of art gallery because it was in a room of an apartment building.

12. Fine Arts Museum

As the name of the museum, this museum is about fine arts in HCMC or Vietnam. The building is originally came with classic french style that we could see on the detail of building, such as floor, window, door, etc.

13.  Jade Emperor Pagoda

I didn't take any picture in this place because I was exhausted, also I was not comfortable for taking a picture. The temple was small and most of people came for praying. I didn't want to disturb their activities.

14. Saigon Kitsch

Last but not least, this is the place which is recommended for you buying souvenirs. There are many unique stuffs and also with good design.