City Highlights & Hidden Gems

What this tour is

This is the route I take people on when it's their first time in Saigon. Everything's decided before you arrive. You don't need a list or any idea which places are worth it. That part's my job.

It's private, so it's just me and whoever you came with 😊 You're not keeping pace with anyone else, and if you want longer somewhere, we stay longer.

It's 3 hours and eight stops. We start away from the centre at a wet market, then walk the streets around it, where people live. After that we sit down for coffee, the old-style kind, and stay a while.

From there it's one Grab into District 1. Then we walk again, because the rest of the stops are close together: Ton That Dam market, Nguyen Hue and the Cafe Apartment, City Hall, the Opera House, and 22 Ly Tu Trong, the roof from the 1975 photo. Anything too far on foot gets another Grab, so we're not trudging along a main road.

We go slowly. There's time to look properly and ask questions, and nobody's herding you to the next stop.

Tell me what time suits your day and I'll fit the start around it.

If you've got 4 hours and want more of the back streets, Saigon See It All is the longer one.

The route

We go roughly in this order, but it shifts depending on the day, the weather and what's open.

1. A wet market

   We start where people do their daily shopping, at a wet market selling fish and greens for the day's cooking. It's busiest in the morning.

2. The neighbourhood around it

   Then we walk the streets around the market. People live here and nobody's selling anything to tourists, and I tell you how the area got the way it is.

3. Old-style coffee

   We sit down for cà phê vợt, coffee strained through a cloth filter, at a place that's been making it for decades. It's strong. Get it with condensed milk and ice, sữa đá, unless you like bitter.

4. Ton That Dam market

   Then a Grab back into District 1. Ton That Dam is one long street of stalls, and some of them sell imported sweets and liquor to foreigners hunting for brands they can't get in a Vietnamese supermarket.

5. Nguyen Hue and the Cafe Apartment

   Nguyen Hue was a canal until the French filled it in, and it's been a walking street since April 2015. The Cafe Apartment at number 42 went up in the early 1960s, and before 1975 President Ngô Đình Diệm's interpreter lived on the sixth floor. Now nearly every flat facing the street is a cafe.

6. City Hall

   The bronze Ho Chi Minh in front went up in May 2015, for his 125th birthday. The building behind him took its look from the town hall in Paris, and in 2020 it was listed as a national relic. It's still the city government's office, so we stay outside.

7. Saigon Opera House

   The front was shaped like the Petit Palais in Paris, which went up the same year. It held 1,800 people when it opened and seats 500 now. In 1943 a lot of the carvings and statues came off the front, because people thought it was too much.

8. 22 Ly Tu Trong

   The roof from the April 1975 photo, with the queue up a wooden ladder to a helicopter. It's not the US Embassy, it never was. The helicopter was an Air America Huey sitting on the lift shaft, which had been strengthened with steel plate a few weeks before, and it left with 12 or 14 people in a machine meant for eight.

Adding or swapping a stop

If you want to add somewhere or swap a stop out, message me on WhatsApp before you book. Tell me what you're after and I'll build the 3 hours around it. If something won't fit, I'll say so.

What we skip, and why

Three places people expect aren't on this one: the War Remnants Museum, the Central Post Office and Notre Dame. All three are easy on your own, and paying me to stand next to you while you look at them doesn't make much sense. Keep the money.

Central Post Office. It's free to go in, and it's one hall. You look up at the ceiling and the old painted maps. Take your photo and you're done in about fifteen minutes. I wouldn't add anything in there that the building doesn't already show you.

Notre Dame Cathedral. Restoration work started in 2017, and the inside is still closed. So you see it from the square, and it's the same square the post office is on. Count the two as one stop.

War Remnants Museum. Tickets are 40,000 VND, and you'll want about two hours. Everything has an English caption, so you won't miss anything without me. It's also heavy. Most people would rather take it in quietly, at their own speed, without someone talking next to them. So I'd rather you go on your own, after the tour or on another day. It's at 28 Võ Văn Tần in District 3, and it opens at 7:30am and closes at 5:30pm.

There's a one-day plan with all three, plus times and prices, in my Saigon guide.

Getting around

Mostly on foot. We take one Grab, from the neighbourhood back into District 1, and after that it's a few minutes' walk from one stop to the next. The Grab is on me, and so is any extra ride if you've added somewhere further out.

What's included

• Me guiding the full 3 hours
• 1 local drink or snack
• Hotel pickup and drop-off in downtown Saigon
• Changes to the route if you ask before booking
• Private, just you and your people
• Free cancellation up to 1 day before

Not included: entry tickets if you add a stop that charges one.

Where we meet

I can pick you up at your hotel in downtown Saigon. Honestly though, a meeting point is easier. I send you a pin when you book. Drop it into Grab and it takes you right there, cheap and quick.