Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City
Intoxicatingly romantic and breathtakingly hectic, brace yourself for what is undoubtedly Vietnam’s most dynamic and dexterous city. Proving you can rebrand a place but you can’t rebrand the people, the name may have changed but ‘Saigon’ never really left, as fiercely proud locals still refer to their city by its original name; evidence of a North/South divide still very much in existence.
However, whilst the country cannot escape its association with the events of 1955-1975, the city was fighting furtively for its ground long before that. The remnants of French colonialism are everywhere, from street side ‘banh mi’ sandwiches to majestic government buildings; except nowadays, ubiquitous statues of Uncle Ho provide a constant reminder of the city’s glorious triumphs and bloody defeats.
Split into an overwhelming number of districts (quan) and wards (phuong), the hidden alleyways or ‘hems’ constitute a city in themselves, chock full of hawker stalls, impossible cafes and perplexing pagodas. Before you know it, you don’t look twice at the family of six passing you by on a motorbike, armed with a mountain of eggs or a tower of live pigs. But if it does all get too much, an hour’s journey out of the city sees the skyscrapers and commotion transform to the often recreated picture postcard images of rice paddies and junks, calmly navigating the Mekong Delta. One thing’s for sure; “Shit, I’m still only in Saigon” are words you’ll need never utter.
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