SAIGON · VIETNAM
Nine million motorbikes, and room for one more.
The Cu Chi tunnels and Mekong Delta day trips, street food eaten off a plastic stool, the Cao Dai temple out at Tay Ninh and the river lit up after dark. The best of Ho Chi Minh City, and every day trip worth the early start.
Only here
Three days you can only have from Saigon.
Markets and boat trips you can find all over Asia. A war fought from under your feet, a temple that worships Victor Hugo, and a delta where the market floats — those are this corner of Vietnam and nowhere else.
Underground war
The Cu Chi Tunnels
Two hours northwest of the city lies a 250-kilometre maze the Viet Cong dug by hand and lived in for the length of a war. A guide walks you over the hidden trapdoors and tripwires at ground level, then you fold yourself into a stretch of the real thing and crawl it in the dark. No museum anywhere puts you this far inside the story.
- 1 HCM City: Cu Chi Tunnels Morning or Afternoon Tour
- 2 Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoon
- 3 HCM: Cu Chi Tunnels & Mekong Delta with Coconut Village Tour
One of a kind
The Cao Dai Great Temple
Out at Tay Ninh stands the strangest, most beautiful building in Vietnam: the holy seat of Cao Dai, a homegrown faith that folds together Buddha, Christ and a pantheon that includes Victor Hugo. Its towers rise in pink and gold under a sky-blue ceiling of stars, and at noon hundreds of robed disciples fill the hall to chant. There is nothing else like it on earth.
- 1 Tay Ninh – Cao Dai & Ba Den Mountain + Optional Cu Chi Tunnels
- 2 Small-Group 1-day: Cao Dai Temple & Ba Den Mountain
- 3 Cu Chi Tunnels – Cao Dai Temple & Black Virgin Mountain Full Day
Life on the water
The Mekong Delta
South of the city the land gives out to water. Channels the colour of milky tea thread between coconut palms and stilt houses, sampans slide under the leaves, and whole markets float on loaded boats at first light. You row the narrow creeks, watch coconut candy pulled by hand, and let the river set the speed of the day.
- 1 From HCM City: Mekong Delta Tour with Sampan Journey
- 2 HCM: Cu Chi Tunnels & Mekong Delta with Coconut Village Tour
- 3 Mekong Delta Guided Tour from Ho Chi Minh City
Start here
If you do one thing from Saigon, do this.
More trips out of the city are built around this day than anything else travellers book.
Where most people start
Saigon's Most Popular Tours
The Cu Chi tunnels, the Mekong run, a street-food crawl by motorbike and a cruise past the lit-up skyline. The days most travellers come to Saigon for.
Street food
The best meals in Saigon have no walls.
The whole city eats on the kerb. A bowl of pho before dawn, banh mi from a cart, com tam off the grill, snails and beer down the night lanes of District 4. The cooks who matter have one dish, a row of low stools and a queue of locals who have come for years. A good guide gets you to them and orders the things you would never find alone.
Read the guide to Saigon street food tours →After dark
Saigon doesn't really start until the sun's gone.
When the heat finally lifts, the city pours back onto the street. Night markets crank up, scooters chase street food across District 4, the A O Show lights the opera house, and the skyline burns gold from a rooftop bar or the deck of a dinner cruise. The best hours in Saigon are the late ones.
Saigon night tours & evenings →The markets
The whole city passes through a market.
Saigon shops out loud. Ben Thanh under its clock tower in the heart of District 1, the wholesale roar of Binh Tay across in Cholon, the wet markets where breakfast is bought before dawn, and the floating markets down on the delta. Half of getting the city is letting a guide walk you through one and tell you what is piled on every stall.
- 1 Cai Rang Floating Market & Mekong Delta 2-Day Tour from HCM City
- 2 Small-group Mekong Floating Market Day Trip from Ho Chi Minh City
- 3 Mekong Delta & Cai Rang Floating Market 2-Day Tour from HCMC
By motorbike
The city only opens up from the back of a bike.
The roads here belong to the bikes, and so do the best guides. Riding pillion you slip down the lanes of District 3, pull over for a bowl of bun bo Hue at a kerbside stall, cross the market at a crawl and chase the late-night food stops no coach could ever reach. An hour in and the traffic stops being chaos and starts being the point.
See all 58 scooter tours →By place
Start downtown, or pick a road out of town.
Downtown for the markets and the food. The Mekong for the coconut channels. Cu Chi for the tunnels. Tay Ninh for that temple. Can Gio for the mangroves and the monkeys. Mui Ne for the red dunes down on the coast.
By activity
So what kind of day do you want?
Street food if you came to eat. A scooter if you want to move. A cooking class to take it home. A walk or a ride for the cooler hours, and the river for the skyline at dusk.
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