Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [52]
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Arrival |
By plane
Tan Son Nhat Airport, with its swish new international terminal, is 7km northwest of the city centre and the journey downtown takes about 30–45 minutes, depending on the traffic. Facilities include duty-free; foreign exchange (daily 7am–1am); taxi, limo and hotel booking desks; a post office (daily 9am–10pm); and left-luggage facilities (daily 7.30am–10pm; $3 per bag per day, $4 for larger items). Don’t lose the immigration card that you fill in on arrival as you will need to hand it in on departure.
The easiest way into the city centre is by metered taxi (about $5–6) from outside the terminal. Make sure the driver switches on the meter and knows exactly where you want to go, as there are many sharks eager to prey on new arrivals. Alternatively, many hotels offer a pick-up service for advance bookings. If you don’t have much baggage, you can get the #152 air-conditioned bus which runs every fifteen minutes or so between the domestic terminal (200m to the right of the international terminal as you leave) and downtown (both Dong Khoi and Pham Ngu Lao) for just 3000đ. A motorbike will run you into town for $3–4, but you’ll have to bargain hard: to find one, walk outside the airport gates (only a hundred metres or so).
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Arrival |
By train
Trains from the north pull in at the train station, or Ga Saigon (08/3843 6528), 3km northwest of town, on Nguyen Thong. The ticket office is open daily 7.30–11.30am and 1.30–4.30pm, though you can also book tickets with agents around De Tham. Since it’s a few kilometres from the centre, it’s best to take a taxi (about $3–4), though you might save a dollar if you bargain furiously with a cyclo or xe om driver.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Arrival |
By bus
Regular buses stop at a clutch of different terminals, while open-tour buses and most arrivals from Phnom Penh in Cambodia terminate on De Tham in the heart of the budget accommodation area.
Buses from the north arrive at sprawling Mien Dong bus station, 5km northeast of the city on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh; the #26 bus shuttles between here and Ben Thanh bus station, which is a five-minute walk from the budget hotel district. Buses from the southwest terminate at Mien Tay bus station, 10km west of the city centre in An Lac District; take a taxi or a #2 bus to Ben Thanh bus station. Well-signposted shuttle buses between Mien Tay and Mien Dong terminals make it possible to bypass central Ho Chi Minh City altogether in the event that you want to travel direct from the Mekong Delta to the north, or vice versa.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Arrival |
By boat
The only regular waterborne arrivals in Ho Chi Minh City are hydrofoils from Vung Tau and express boats from Can Tho, which dock at the Bach Dang jetty on Ton Duc Thang.
Ho Chi Minh City and around |
Information
For practical information with no strings attached, enquire at your guesthouse or hotel, or at one of the tour agents along Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham. These should also be able to provide you with a basic map of the city centre, while a more detailed map is available from bookshops and street hawkers.
For information about what’s on in Ho Chi Minh City, you’ll find in many hotels and restaurants the free magazines, The Word or Asia Life, which are aimed at expats. Another useful source of info is The Guide, which covers the whole country and is sold in bookstores for 30,000đ. All are published monthly.
Ho Chi Minh City and around |
City transport
Faint-hearted visitors to Ho Chi Minh City will blanch upon first encountering the chaos that passes for its traffic system. Thousands of motorcycles, bicycles and cyclo fill the city’s streets and boulevards in an insectile swarm that is now supplemented by a burgeoning number of cars and minibuses, most with their horns constantly blaring.
Despite the city’s massive sprawl, most of its attractions are conveniently clustered so that it is quite feasible to explore