During my Africa trip with my parents earlier in the year, I wrote about a couple of our days in Cape Town using a crutch of splitting it up into what new stuff I did that I somehow missed in the prior five trips, and what old, familiar stuff I did. Given this is my third trip to HCMC in five years (and technically fourth overall), I figured I would go about it the same way. Especially since I did take some focus to ensure I could fill up the "new" side of the ledger.
The Old
Of course, I'll still start by focusing on the old stuff. First the weird thing where the rain just holds off. I may regret writing this now, at the tail end of the touristic part of my first day, but it is weird how little the actual weather seems to correlate with forecasts even the prior day. Anyway, let me move on before the weather gods crucify me for this bit of flaunt.
So, let's talk about the War Remnants Museum. I've know been here each of the three trips to HCMC. Not sure why, to be honest other than its me admitting that coming to Vietnam as an American... kind of means I owe it to the people of this country to give a bit of pennance and reflect on the atrocity that was that war. Granted of course, I wasn't alive for it. But I am an American, and yeah it is a harrowing experience each time. There were actually a few changes this time around in the museum - first they replaced what was the prior two trips an exhibit on the Anti-War protests in America (basically the one area that they give some credit to the American people that largely were against the war) with one memorializing the 50th anniversary of a particularly awful aerial bombing attack.
The rest of the museum was largely the same, with teh top floor giving a very honest breakdown of the timeline fo the war, starting from the war against the French that gave Vietnam its initial independence in the 50's, to the entirety of the Vietnam war itself. I did notice this time more than previous that it is fairly openly anti the Southern Vietnamese people, who the US were backing and fighting alongside (and who ultimately lost, as Hanoi and the North took over the whole country). The other exhibit on the third floor is beautiful, featuring photography from war photographers (including some US ones) on the brutality of war on all sides. This is probably the "fairest" portrayal in the museum.
The second floor is more pointed and stark, with two exhibits, one just simply called "War Crimes" and the other specifically about Agent Orange and the trail of deformities and diseases it has left in its wake. There is no combating the atrocities here really, and as an American I feel we should visit each time just to remember again how awful of a war this was.
Shifting gears a lot, quick shout out to the Le Meridien Club Lounge, which remains one of the few Marriott-property club lounges I've visited in recent years worth its while. The food selection for hourdourves is excellent, with the normal cold cuts and cheese, but also prepared food of beef satay skewers, crispy bang bang sauce soft shell crab, actually good crostini, and local fruits. It was an excellent little break both of the two days.
I did some Temples ("Chua"s in Vietnamese parlance), a couple new ones that I'll get to, but it was nice to go back to the Chua Ngoc Huang, which is the most contained active one I've been to in teh sense it was being used far more as an actual temple than a tourism site, adn then the Vinh Ngiemh near the other river that runs through HCMC. The Vinh Ngiem is a little bit out of the bustle and has some space to breathe, including multiple pagodas, three or so temple buildings, some ornate sculpture, and a beautiful little side pond so chocked with koi it was hard to keep track, again with some nice buddha statues to boot. Overall, the HCMC temples are far from the most ornate, and definitely not the largest, but the way they seemlessly just fit in right smack in the middle of this city is quite impressive.
In terms of meals and nightlife, Anan technically fits in teh old category, but went with a tasting menu option this time that I'll detail separately. Cuc Guach Ngon was as good as ever, seemingly a bit mroe built out as this time I was sent to teh second floor of the house that they've converted into a restaurant, that literally had a wall of pottery and ceramics befitting a museum next to my table.
In terms of nightlife, Pasteur Street Brewing was as good as ever - they really have some great beers on tap. My new favorite this time that I don't recall in past was a Pomelo IPA which was lovely, but their stout and more standard IPA offerings are strong as always. The Gin House had some great cocktails, even if they're a bit more expensive than needed given what i found at Summer Experiment (check the new section).
Finally, let's talk about The Observatory. I've ranked it as my favorite techno club in the world. I nearly avoided going there Friday night because they had one event which was a pride event. I have nothing against pride events and think it's awesome they can have such an event on what many would think is a fairly conservative country, but it's just not my scene. Instead I tried out The Lighthouse, which is a similar set-up but nowhere near the same. You aren't as high up, the dance space is not nearly as chill and dark and special. The DJs weren't as good. I gave it a bit of a run but gave up and headed over to The Observatory around 1am.
The Observatory was packed. There was definitely a sizable pride / drag presence but the scheduled drag part of the night was over at midnight. And I think given the large expat-heavy crowd that there always is, many came just because The Observatory is awesome. They had redone the semi-outdoor terrace half of the establishment - admittedly the half I spend far less time in, but it was definitely looking spruced up. The interior club was as perfect as I remembered it. The balloons as fun as ever (made better by basically everyone there doing them as well). The scene is just perfect.
I went back Saturday, it was packed again as it was their official "unveiling" of the redesigned terrace, and again it was just a great time. Maybe its the balloons, maybe its the great scenery, maybe its the friendliness of the Viettnamese people infecting us all through osmosis but I'm always happily surprised how many people there will ask who I am, why I'm in Vietnam, to do a balloon with them, etc. It was effectively the last thing I did in HCMC, and if not for needing to leave the hotel by 10:30am tomorrow morning, I probably would've stayed until 4am.
New
Again, this is probably going to be longer of the two sections, just because I made it a point to do some new stuff. Some of these were good enough I'm retroactively mad at myself for not doing them on my two prior trips. The first was the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts.
This is probably the best museum in HCMC (aside from the War Remnants one), and I really enjoyed it. It's laid out in three buildings each with 2-3 stories or exhibits. The first showcases Vietnamese art and sculpture made from 1950 to today. A lot of war undertones certainly, but it is all made by Vietnamese artists and a lot was certainly quite beautiful. The third building had more ancient artifacts, each floor with a specific medium it was focusing on. The first floor was stone work from ancient times, then ceramics and bronze, then woodwork and jade. It spans roughly 100 BC up to the 1900s. The middle building is rotating exhibits, this time with select work from the National Art Museum in Hanoi, which again had a level of intricacy, and more than that emotion that I wasn't totally expecting.
The next stop was the the observatory of the Bitexco Financial Tower, the odd shaped, glistening building that is the tallest in Vietnam. It really is a gorgeous building, its defining feature probably being the helipad that juts out of it. The observation deck is on the 49th floor (oddly about 15 floors below the top), but gives a 360 degree view of the city. Ho Chi Minh City is interesting in the sense the Saigon River cuts right through it but basically everything worth doing and seeing is on the Western half of the river. Truly, I don't know if I've ever actually been on the Eastern half. It's quite start from the observatory view, but that Western Half is gorgeous, from being ab le to see the opera house and the main esplanades, to the bridges, to the size of the city in the distance. Every time I've come here I get more impressed - and in reality that's the way it should be. In many ways the country is just 50 years old (end of War to now) and has a drive to improve and better itself like few countries I've seen.
Malt Saigon is a great beer bar. It's right in the heart of the city (in truth a lot of the sites in the city are walkable). It serves craft beer from five or so other HCMC breweries (including Pasteur Street), which is a nice way to try some of the ones that IU don't have time to go to on my limited trip. The decor is also great, with a shuffleboard table, some great artwork, and overall a really nice vibe.
From a further sightseeing perspective, the two new Chuas I went to this time were both quite special, and arguably the two best that I've seen over my trips to HCMC. The second one was in the Chinatown area, a bit further away from most of the sights, but worth visiting. The Chua Van Phat is tucked away squished between two apartment buildings, and from the otuside and even through floors 1-3 it is pretty meh, apart from some nice paintings on the third floor (and the biggest plus - them having no issues with you taking photos). But once you get to that top floor, you get it. The place is known for having a thousand buddhas. They're all on that top floor.
There are teh three giant ones in the middle, like many buddhist temples will have - though the small nature of the space makes them feel even larger and more imposing than normal. And then on every wall are I guess the other 997, small statuettes of buddhas from floor to ceiling everywhere. It really is a cool sight, and one that was very new for me in HCMC.
The other new temple was the Chua Phap Hoa, which borders the north/south river, notable for its river views, the hundreds of lanters on its big greenery, and its three levels of ornate buddhas and carvings. It probably is the fanciest temple (though I would argue the Vinh Ngiem is right up with it) in HCMC, though sadly they were pretty vigilant of not allowing photos of the main interior rooms. All these temples I saw, with the exception of the Van Phat one, are walking distance of each other - not as close to each other as say the temple circuit in Nikko, but still gives you a good view of HCMC as well.
From a food perspective, my new meal was a dinner at Laang, written up in the New York Times's 36 Hours in HCMC, and also conveniently two blocks from the Le Meridien. The place is really well decorated and has a great, long menu of modernized Vietnamese classics. I went a bit traditional with a beef mince in betel leaf lettuce wrap dish, with the twist being it was deep fried in a casing of a local Vietnamese grain. For the main I went with a duck breast in a garlic and clove sauce with Vietnamese green onion and spinach, with peanut slaw, and it was divine. Duck is very good and underrated in Vietnam. It was a bit disconcerting to see Laang as emtpy as it was on a Friday Nigth (about 40% full through my time there), but the waiters admitted it actually caters more to lunch than dinner. Anyway, it was worth the trip.
Finally, the best new thing I did was go to Summer Experiment. Like the two cocktail bars on Thursday Night after I reached (in good symmetry, one new, one old), it is in a dingy alley a couple flights of stairs up. Come to think of it, so is the original Pasteur Street Brewing Co Taphouse - for whatever reason this is just a common thing in HCMC. Anyways, once you get in they have a gorgeous, open space and some amazing cocktails. It is the best one I've been to in HCMC, and having tasted now six of their cocktails, I honestly think it is my favorite I went to on the entire trip. They opened apparently a month after my 2019 trip here, and when I came last year I focused probably too much on just redoing my favorites checklist, but i'm glad I ventured out. Less glad about it leading me to The Lighthouse (they're close to each other...), but in the end I corrected that error quick enough.
As I leave HCMC, I do wonder when I'll come back again. Not that I wouldn't want to, but if not for these Singapore Airlines miles necessitating me to head towards Singapore, I probably don't return last year or this year. Granted, I could've I guessed done Hanoi, or one of the Thai cities I haven't been to before, this year, but I wanted to come back to HCMC because I truly love it.
**City Rankings Sidebar: As always when I do these trips, I start thinking of how all the cities stack up on my list of favorites. Currently going into this trip, we had Tokyo at #18, Kyoto at #11, HCMC at #10 (and Bangkok there too, but this visit is almost only to visit Gaggan Anand, so not expecting my ranking to go up or down on that one...). In retrospect, I think some changes are in order.
First of all, Takayama is definitely getting ranked, and probably fairly high up. It was a perfect change of pace in Japan. Not as sure about Nikko. I don't want to expand the list further from its current 60, but also loathe getting rid of cities. What I may do is make some honorable mentions, namely the cities I have on the lsit that I've only visited as a 8/9/10 year old. Anyway, back to the list.
Tokyo may drop a bit to be honest. It is a great city, but I think I probably spent a day too long, or its just a bit too overwhelming. The real fun for me has been mentally debating the Kyoto ranking, and then namely if it jumps HCMC. I think it will to be honest. Kyoto on a second, more focused visit, blew me away. The restaurants are great. The bar scene is great, especially since most of the main spots are on the same 8x2 block drag in the center of the city. It is a far more visitable city to see in full than Tokyo - and even then there's a good deal of places I still haven't seen. Put it this way, if I go back to Japan, while I'll probably focus on areas I haven't seen at all, I'll probably still leave room for a couple days in Kyoto, being fine to largely ignore Tokyo.
As for HCMC, I don't think it rises further, though completely independently, I'm thinking of dropping Sydney down a bit, so it may still see its position change overall. I would always suggest to anyone who would care to listen to visit HCMC and give it a good 3-5 days on a Vietnam trip, but the biggest takeaway from this trip has been to even more strongly suggest that about Kyoto.**
