Ho Chi Minh City is the hub to cover all places to visit in south Vietnam. We visited HCM City, Cu Chi tunnels and Mekong delta
Cu Chi Tunnels
It is an hour away from HCM city. There are two options at Ben Duoc and Ben Dinh when you try searching on Grab. Ben Dinh is the closer and more popular one with widened tunnels for tourists to experience the tunnels- make sure you choose this location to avoid 20% higher pricing. Our Grab driver dropped us at Ben Dinh despite choosing Ben Douc and we naively got down without knowing the difference
The entire region with its trees provide a serene atmosphere worth taking a trail through
The area has tunnels used in Vietnam war days, which you can try crawling through. It also has huts with different types of traps used in erstwhile days, area to show a documentary, a shooting range, rice paper making area.
Mekong delta
I was very skeptical of this experience given reviews I had read earlier. It turned out to be good surprisingly! We saw lots of fruit orchards which we really liked. We ignored the bee farms, python cages and snake wine sections. The day is activity packed and you never feel bored. The rich orchards on the delta and the Nipa palm avenues were unique for us.
Nipa palms have spiky ball shaped fruits which look like flowers once opened.
The canal ride on rowing boat was a very peaceful and calm experience
On the way back, we visited Vinh Tranh Pagoda. It has Buddha statues in all forms- standing, sitting, laughing. Locals are developing large statues so that the pagoda is visible from a far distance
Choose one of the tours as the cost will be similar vs. hailing a Grab or arranging private driver. We went with VN Lotus Travel through Tripadvisor. We chose the cheaper large bus option and had no issues with quality or leg space
Ho Chi Minh City
Knows as Saigon earlier. We saw most of the places from outside while travelling in and out of the city. Notre Dame cathedral, War remnants museum, Bitexo Financial Tower, Opera House, Ben Thanh market are some of the famous attractions
We are not city people, so we didn’t think it made sense to extend our stay by a day to enter these places and spend time. If you have half a day to spare, you can cover these at pace. Ensure you have a walk by the river near Ba Son Bridge to see brightly lit ships and boats sailing on Saigon River. The atmosphere in the evenings are pretty lively
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