Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [50]
If Hanoi is a city of romance and mellow charms, then Ho Chi Minh City is its antithesis, a fury of sights and sounds, and the crucible in which Vietnam’s rallying fortunes are boiling. Few corners of the city afford respite from the cacophony of construction work casting up new office blocks and hotels with logic-defying speed. An increasing number of cars and minibuses jostle with an organic mass of state-of-the-art SUVs, Hondas and cyclo, choking the tree-lined streets and boulevards. Amid this melee, the local people go about their daily life: smartly-dressed schoolkids wander past streetside baguette-sellers; women shoppers ride Hondas clad in gangster-style bandanas and shoulder-length gloves to protect their skin from the sun and dust; while teenagers in designer jeans chirrup into mobile phones. Much of the fun of being in Ho Chi Minh City derives from the simple pleasure of absorbing its flurry of activity – something best done from the seat of a cyclo or a roadside café. To blink is to miss some new and singular sight, be it a motorbike stacked high with piglets bound for the market, or a boy on a bicycle rapping out a staccato tattoo on pieces of bamboo to advertise noodles for sale.
It’s one of Ho Chi Minh City’s many charms that once you’ve exhausted, or been exhausted by, all it has to offer, paddy fields, beaches and wide-open countryside are not far away. The most popular trip out of the city is to the Cu Chi tunnels, where villagers dug themselves out of the range of American shelling. The tunnels are often twinned with a tour around the fanciful Great Temple of the indigenous Cao Dai religion at Tay Ninh. A brief taster of the Mekong Delta at My Tho or a dip in the South China Sea at Ho Coc are also eminently possible in a long day’s excursion (See "My Tho and around" and "Ho Coc Beach" respectively).
The best time to visit tropical Ho Chi Minh City is in the dry season, which runs from December through to April. During the wet season, May to November, there are frequent tropical storms, though these won’t disrupt your travels too much. Average temperatures, year-round, hover between 26 and 29°C; March, April and May are the hottest months.
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Ho Chi Minh City and around |
Highlights
War Remnants Museum The city’s most moving museum, a stark reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.
Ben Thanh Market Check the city’s pulse here on an early-morning stroll.
Jade Emperor Pagoda Beautiful carved woodwork, an eclectic collection of deities and a constant fog of incense make this the city’s most fascinating temple.
Saigon’s restaurants Several stylish locations offer the ideal ambience in which to savour the delights of Vietnamese cuisine.
Bars with great views Sip a sundowner while gazing over the bustling activity below.
Dong Khoi shops The boutiques in this area are great for silks and paintings.
US plane at the War Remnants Museum
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Ho Chi Minh City and around |
Some history
Knowledge of Ho Chi Minh City’s early history is sketchy, at best. Between the first and sixth centuries, the territory on which it lies fell under the nominal rule of the Funan Empire to the west. Funan was subsequently absorbed by the Kambuja peoples of the pre-Angkor Chen La Empire, but it is unlikely that these imperial machinations had much bearing upon the sleepy fishing backwater that would later develop into Ho Chi Minh City.
Khmer fishermen eked out a living here, building their huts on the stable ground just north of the delta wetlands, which made it ideal for human settlement. Originally named Prei Nokor, it flourished as an entrepôt for Cambodian boats pushing down the Mekong River, and by the seventeenth century it boasted a garrison and a mercantile community that embraced Malay, Indian and Chinese traders.
Such a dynamic settlement was bound to draw attention from the north. By the eighteenth century, the Viets had subdued the kingdom of Champa, and this area