Solo Backpacker’s Essential 2-Day Itinerary for Exploring Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
This May Day holiday, I went to Vietnam and stayed in Ho Chi Minh City for a day and a half. Here are my travel tips and impressions:
1. Regarding the Vietnamese visa, there are separate paper visas, e-visas, and visa on arrival. I had already arranged a separate paper visa through an agent in China. If you plan to get a visa on arrival, you must also arrange the approval letter in advance in China; without it, you will be denied boarding.
2. With the separate paper visa, I passed through customs normally by queuing, without giving or being asked for a tip, and passed smoothly.
3. There’s no need to exchange Vietnamese dong or US dollars in advance. After passing through customs, there are ATMs where you can withdraw cash directly with a UnionPay card. BIDV has the cheapest fees, charging 10 RMB per withdrawal.
4. After leaving the airport, be sure to use Grab for a taxi, and don’t take unlicensed taxis! I took an unlicensed taxi and was scammed out of 500,000 VND.
5. The attractions in Ho Chi Minh City are concentrated, and you can walk around them all in one day. Recommended one-day itinerary: Pink Church → Book Street → Notre Dame Cathedral → Central Post Office → Museum → City Hall → Opera House → Cafe Apartment → Watch the sunset by the Saigon River → Night double-decker bus → Pham Ngu Lao Street.
6. I recommend taking a Saigon River cruise at dusk to watch the sunset, navigate to 📍Saigon Waterbus Station. After the cruise, take the night double-decker bus, navigate to 📍LV boutique, where you can see ticket sellers at the entrance. These two activities were the most enjoyable after a day of sightseeing.
7. Don’t buy fruit from roadside vendors! The owner gave me a fresh rambutan to taste, but when I bought a bag, I found that most of them were spoiled.
[Some Impressions]
The former Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, has a kind of indescribable sense of division. Some areas are as bustling with skyscrapers as Shanghai, while others are dirty and chaotic, hard to imagine this is Vietnam’s largest city. Some small shops look dilapidated on the outside but are very exquisite inside, which is quite interesting.
There seem to be more motorcycles here than in Bangkok, and people yielding to vehicles is their unique order. Coffee shops are everywhere, and coconut coffee is delicious. The temperature feels like 40 degrees, and you sweat profusely after just a few steps, which is a bit unbearable.
Perhaps because I had recently been to Japan and Thailand, my expectations were quite high, but the actual travel experience still fell short. Although there were some pitfalls, I also met many nice people, such as the security guard who offered to take my picture in front of the Pink Church, and the hotel receptionist who spoke Chinese and reminded me to be careful…
Good experiences, bad experiences, they are all part of the journey. This is the meaning of travel.
@Life Potato
