4-Day Ho Chi Minh City Itinerary — Street Food, Cu Chi & the Mekong Delta

Independence Palace

📍 District 1

The 1960s presidential palace frozen at the moment two tanks came through the gate in 1975. Go down to the basement command bunker — the map room and the radio equipment are still wired as they were left.

War Remnants Museum

📍 Vo Van Tan, District 3

Ten minutes' walk from the palace. The photojournalism floor is the reason to come; the courtyard holds captured US aircraft and armour. Confronting, and the single most useful two hours for understanding the rest of the trip.

Banh Mi Huynh Hoa

📍 Le Thi Rieng, District 1

The banh mi people queue twenty deep for — five kinds of cold cut, a thick smear of pate and pork floss. Order the small one; the large is genuinely hard to finish standing up.

Saigon Central Post Office

📍 Cong Xa Paris, District 1

Still a working post office under a vaulted iron roof, with the 1892 hand-painted maps of Saigon and Indochina at the far end. Notre-Dame Cathedral stands directly opposite — it is mid-restoration and closed inside, so this is an exterior stop.

Ben Thanh Market

📍 District 1

The souvenir aisles are a hard-bargaining tourist trap; the reason to walk in is the food court at the south end for banh xeo and che. Prices roughly halve at the street stalls that set up outside after 18:00.

Bui Vien Walking Street

📍 Pham Ngu Lao, District 1

Backpacker Saigon at full volume from 19:00 when the street closes to traffic. One beer on a kerbside stool is the whole experience; the quieter craft-beer bars are one block north on Nguyen Thai Hoc.

Thien Hau Temple

📍 Nguyen Trai, District 5

The Cantonese sea-goddess temple at the heart of Cho Lon, hung with coils of incense that burn for weeks. Come early — by 10:00 the smoke and the crowd are both much thicker.

Nghia An Hoi Quan Pagoda

📍 Nguyen Trai, District 5

A Chaozhou assembly hall five minutes' walk away, quieter than Thien Hau and better preserved — carved timber beams, a red lacquered boat over the entrance and almost no tour groups.

Binh Tay Market

📍 Thap Muoi, District 6

Cho Lon's wholesale market in a French-built courtyard building with a clock tower. This is where the city's restaurants buy, so it is dried goods, spices and noodles by the sack rather than souvenirs.

Cha Tam Church

📍 Hoc Lac, District 5

A small pastel Catholic church serving the Chinese-Vietnamese community, and the building where President Ngo Dinh Diem was arrested in 1963 before being killed in the armoured car outside. A quiet courtyard to sit in at midday.

Jade Emperor Pagoda

📍 Mai Thi Luu, Da Kao, District 1

The ride back east out of Cho Lon. A Taoist temple from 1909 packed with carved wooden figures of the gods of the underworld, dim and smoke-blackened. The turtle pond in the courtyard is the calm bit.

Ho Thi Ky Flower Market

📍 District 10

A wholesale flower market that turns into the city's best Cambodian-Vietnamese food alley after dark — num banh chok, grilled skewers, snail dishes. Come hungry and eat in four or five small stops rather than one.

Cu Chi Tunnels Ben Dinh

📍 Cu Chi District

About 90 minutes northwest of the centre. Ben Dinh is the closer and busier of the two tunnel sites; a widened 100m stretch is open to crawl through, with exits every 20m for anyone who changes their mind.

Ben Duoc Memorial Temple

📍 Cu Chi District

Fifteen kilometres further along the Saigon River from Ben Dinh, and almost empty of foreign visitors. The temple hall carries the names of nearly 45,000 dead from the district carved into the walls.

Bitexco Financial Tower

📍 Hai Trieu, District 1

Back in the city. The Saigon Skydeck on floor 49 is the cheap option; a drink at the bar two floors up costs about the same as the ticket and gets you a seat by the glass.

Nguyen Hue Walking Street

📍 District 1

The pedestrian boulevard running from the People's Committee building to the river, at its best in the hour after sunset. Duck into the 1960s apartment block at number 42 — every flat is now a small cafe.

Landmark 81

📍 Vinhomes Central Park, Binh Thanh

Vietnam's tallest tower, four kilometres upriver. The observation deck and the sky bars both look back down on the whole bend of the Saigon River — the better view of the two towers, and the later one.

Vinh Trang Pagoda

📍 My Tho, Tien Giang

Two hours south of Saigon. An 1849 pagoda with a facade that mixes Khmer, Chinese and French detailing, and three enormous Buddha statues in the grounds — reclining, standing and seated.

Thoi Son Island

📍 Unicorn Island, My Tho

The classic delta hour: a motorboat across the Tien River, then a sampan rowed down a coconut-palm canal too narrow for anything with an engine. Also where the honey tea and fruit tastings happen.

Con Phung

📍 Phoenix Island, Ben Tre

The ruins of the Coconut Monk's 1960s riverine temple complex — a concrete platform of dragon pillars built by a French-educated chemist who founded his own religion here. Lunch of elephant-ear fish is served on the island.

Ben Tre Market

📍 Ben Tre City

The coconut province's own market, on the riverfront. Coconut candy is pulled and cut by hand at the workshops around it — worth watching for ten minutes before buying a slab for the drive back.

My Tho Market

📍 My Tho, Tien Giang

A last stop for hu tieu My Tho, the clear-broth rice noodle the town gave its name to, before the road back to Saigon. Eat it dry-style with the broth on the side — that is the local order.