Ho Chi Minh City Completely Surprised Me (Here's Why)

This is Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, a city that somehow makes ancient history and modern chaos feel completely at home with each other. With centuries-old markets, the 17th tallest skyscraper on earth, dollar pho, koi fish cafes, and neon-soaked streets that don't sleep. We had two days to take it all in and I honestly wish we would have had a week. Let's jump into it. Good morning Vietnam! For our first stop of the day we made our way to King Koi Coffee, a place that has become incredibly popular in Vietnam, largely due to social media. Luckily I can say that this place is just as cool in real life, if not cooler. This is a unique experience to have. We are at the koi fish cafe. Look at this! That is so many koi fish. There's like a thousand of them right there. This is such a fascinating idea and I read online that it came out of the tradition of garden cafes, these kind of huge open air cafes in Vietnam. However, with this one the owner had the idea of letting customers get down next to the koi and so he built these tables that are basically on the water level. This is such a wild experience I never thought I was going to have. You can buy coffee and drinks and just sit and enjoy them at the table looking out over the fish. You can buy fish food and you can feed them if you're interested. It's a unique experience. I feel like I would just love to sit here all day and have some dinner and a cocktail. You gotta stand back though, don't get you wet. That is a lot, a lot of koi fish. Note that it gets incredibly busy on the weekends so be sure to get there early if this is something that you want to do. From there we hopped in a Grab, which is like their Uber, and we made our way over to one of the top attractions in the city, Landmark 81. Landmark 81 is the tallest building in Vietnam and the 17th tallest in the world and you access it by going into a mall. Well you want to see something shocking? Here is an ice rink inside of this mall. Did you expect to see an ice rink in Vietnam in a mall? No, not in Vietnam let alone a mall. Like this is crazy. After marveling at the ice rink that existed when it was hot and humid outside we made our way up towards the observation deck. It is really crazy that there's no one here and we're just doing our own thing going up to the top right now. This is really a do-it-yourself observation deck. Like most observation decks in tall buildings, the elevator was really fast and we arrived at the top quickly. Wow that is pretty awesome. Not the best air quality but pretty awesome. They started building it in 2014, completed the retail base in 2018, and then completed the observation deck in 2019. The building sits at 461 meters or 1513 feet and once you get to the top you can explore three different floors by walking up the stairs to see each. It's wild how different this experience is than the Tokyo Skytree. There's nobody up here, there wasn't even anybody running the elevator. It's kind of fun to be able to just come up here and enjoy it without anybody telling you to do anything. So if you buy this experience online on Klook it comes with a VR experience which we are doing now. I got hands. The VR experience let you scale the building from the outside and then it also lets you jump off and parachute down from the top of the building. Plus they let Jack do it too which was super cool. Sonny was not interested in trying it. That was crazy. And then the last thing you could do is you could put on a harness and you could climb out in this open air part of the building. Got my safety gear. What's up? Don't look at my shorts. This is a very interesting experience. I'm gripped up with this safety gear but I got some pretty epic views up here and then there's the top up there so that's how close to the top we are. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the safety gear and stuff was. I was only about 10 feet above the people who were below me who didn't have the gear but I'm guessing because it's glass and it's close to the edge then maybe it was just another safety precaution. Our ticket came with this amazing photo. That was a great observation deck. I had a lot of fun. I wish that it was a little bit clearer but you could still get some great views. Got to do the VR thing. Got to take some pictures. I mean not bad. Leaving Landmark 81 we went in a grab and headed over to lunch at a place called Pho Vietnam which is a Michelin recommended pho place in the city. This place was packed with tourists and visitors alike and it was nice that the menu had pictures on it so it was pretty easy to order just by pointing. That being said we definitely over ordered and the amount of food that came to our table was pretty crazy including fresh coconuts for the kids. Amy and I got this one that you cook in front of you and you add everything into the boiling broth and it was incredible but Jack was the one who loved pho the most in our family. He was a huge fan. Look I haven't had a lot of pho but this is the best I've ever had. It is just the flavors. The meat is so juicy like it melts in your mouth. All the different additions that they have here. Definitely come here if you're looking for a good bowl. I like the noodles. I'm not even exaggerating. This place was incredible and it's definitely one of the highlights for our time in the city. It was delicious. It was like the freshest pho I've ever had. Loved the meat. Here's what it's like to cross the street. You just walk out and you hope that everybody goes around you and this was definitely not a very crazy one. Nice work bud. We made it across the street. I don't even feel stressed about that. You don't feel stressed about that? I feel a little bit stressed about it. I'm just like here we go. I'm walking here. So that's the spot and then they have a second location and we have a second location. From here we crossed some more streets and wandered around and explored and we found ourselves inside of an old propaganda poster store. This was pretty fascinating to see as it was located on the third floor of a building and they had all sorts of unique art in here. Heading on we walked about 10 minutes over to one of the most popular markets in the city. We always find sticks wherever we go even in Vietnam. That is the biggest leaf I've ever seen Jack. Are they better or worse sticks in Vietnam than the United States? Better? Oh better sticks here okay. I just love walking around this city. So much energy and just so much unique things to look at and now we are heading on to a famous market known as the Ben Thanh market. This is one of the biggest markets in the city and it's definitely more for tourists but it's still a lot of fun to explore. The original market near here started along the banks of the river almost 400 years ago and then the official market was established in 1859 but it was relocated to this current location in 1912. This is definitely an overwhelming experience especially if you're traveling with young children. The lanes are narrow there's so much to see make sure you keep an eye on them. That being said we all had a blast just wandering around and exploring and there is something for everybody here with tons of different souvenirs all sorts of sports jerseys and of course things that you can eat. We let the kids pick up a few small things but that's all we got and then on the way out we saw sugar cane juice which is something that I've been really wanting to try. This is sugar cane juice that you can see them actually compressing in there. I don't know what I was expecting. I expected just straight sugar but it almost has like a citrusy type flavor. It is really really good so try sugar cane juice while you're here. After relaxing and hanging out with the cousins for a little bit my sister offered to put the kids to bed so Amy and I could go out for a food night tour of Ho Chi Minh City. Oh and this food tour was also from the back of a motorbike. We booked a private tour from Kluk which is the main site for Southeast Asia to book tours like this and it came out to around 50 US a person for three and a half hours and 10 different dishes we tried. How was it? That was another day you know just cruising on through. That was a wild ride when we made it to our first stop on the food tour. If you've seen my Hanoi video then you know I love these food tours and we drove about 20 minutes to our first stop to get a banh mi. In case you've never had one of these before this is a famous Vietnamese sandwich and you can find them all over the United States as well. It's so good. I like the way the pork is, the fresh veggies. Delicious. Cheers. It's incredible and just like that we've had our first dish and we're on to Chinatown. It's hard to overstate how fun this experience was and Amy and I both said that it was probably in the top 10 travel experiences we had done together. There's just something about cruising around the city on a motorbike and eating amazing food. About 10 minutes later we arrived at our second stop and like I said in the Hanoi food tour I'm not going to try to describe all of this as I'm not actually sure what we ate at all these places but I will do my best. We're around to right now trying a crispy pancake also known as Banh Xeo. Yeah? Yes. So this is the name of it Banh Xeo. They also brought out something that they described as a shrimp pancake and then they brought out some pork spring rolls. This is a lot of food for our second stop. Let's dip it in here first. Cheers. That is so interesting. It is like an omelet pancake spring roll with like shrimp. Delicious. As we made it downstairs we saw the other tour which was not the private one and you can see there's about 15 people in it. That one was only around 12 U.S. dollars less so it seemed like the private tour was the way to go. From here was about 15 minutes on the bike to one of our last stops a flower market and a food market. Known as the Ho Thi Khi market it's one of the largest flower markets in the city and it was established in the 1980s. Even visiting a flower market in another country is cool as I saw a lot of flowers that I've never even seen before in the United States. I was shocked that the market was open this late at night but our guide told us that it's the most busy from midnight to 3 a.m. when buyers arrive to purchase fresh flowers that have been delivered from farms across Vietnam. So awesome just exploring a flower market that's open 24 hours a day in Ho Chi Minh City. Now we're going to a street food market. The street food market was basically connected to the flower market and it served a wide collection of things ranging from snails as big as your hand to chicken kebabs. Check it out I'm having a true Vietnam experience look at this uh look at this chair. Big man and a little chair. Our second to last food item of the night was Vietnamese pizza and a local beer. Amy's trying Vietnamese pizza all right. Yeah it's like a little crispy I like the corn a little sweet sauce on it. Better than Italian pizza? Different. Oh I like that it's got like a nice little spice to it definitely more like a flat than it is a pizza. Ending the night with the avocado durian ice cream avocado coconut ice cream. Amy's first uh time having the durian flavor. It's not fresh durian fruit but it's durian flavored ice cream. It's like a flavor I've never had before but I'm not like upset about it. It's a little weird. It smells like sweet like a sweet weird. This ice cream is the perfect way to end the night the avocado the fresh coconut on the top I mean the coconut flavor on it I'm fully in on this it's not what I expected from ice cream but I'm fully in. After eating we just explored the market for a while and there was a few more things I wish I could have tried but unfortunately I was pretty full after all the things we'd eaten already. I have never known that anyone eats horseshoe crabs before that's unique to see for sure. It's so wild to be walking through this market and then just to have motorcycles going right next to you. We explored the market for another 20 minutes and then we made our way back to our motorbikes to go on to our last stop. This is one of my favorite parts of the entire adventure as the city really came alive at night time with many of the buildings having different colored lights on them and there was a firework show and so many people out just enjoying the water and the experience. While we were riding the motorbikes we saw the impressive bossam bridge which I hope is the way that you pronounce that and we got to ride across it which was so cool at night with all the colors lit up and then our last stop of the night was not a food stop we went down towards the Saigon river park and we just got to enjoy the beauty of the city from across the water and I don't know what I was expecting the city to look like at night but it definitely wasn't this and it was so cool to just sit and enjoy the crazy different light shows on the building and just the amazing time that we had had experiencing the city at night. That was an amazing food tour I will leave a link to it in the description what did you think? It was awesome so fun to see Vietnam that way and delicious food. And from there we headed back to where we were staying and got ready for day two. This is how you start the morning in Vietnam. We had a late night so we just relaxed in the morning with some coffee and then I headed down to meet my sister for lunch. I used a Grab to get there and we were going to a lunch spot we had been planning on going to for years. Listening to Michael Jackson in the Grab. My sister and her family have been living in Ho Chi Minh for over a year so I met up with her and we went to one of her favorite places to get a smoothie. As you're looking at these prices note that they're in the tens of thousands so 30,000 Vietnam dong was about $1.15 USD. That's one of the best things you can do get smoothie or juice and just watch the world go by. From there we took another Grab and we picked a car as I didn't want any more motorbikes after the previous night and we made our way over to Lunch Lady a famous restaurant and the main reason that we were coming to hang out today. This is a very unique experience that I'm not familiar with I've sat down I've just got served food not even sure what it is but I'm excited. So this is pho lan which is like a medium-sized bowl of pho. It's got all the typical stuff that's really delicious meatballs and then thinly sliced onions various herbs. I like putting hoisin sauce on top of it. Mix it all together it's delicious. All right so this is such a cool experience for me. Amy and I when we were in Vancouver about six years ago we ate at Lunch Lady in Vancouver but this is the original Lunch Lady one that Bourdain kind of helped make famous back in the day and so being in Vietnam with my sister and being able to try this is just an experience I never thought I was going to have. I've lived in Vietnam for a year now and I love pho. I like to eat it for breakfast which is what a lot of locals do too but the pho sometimes like pho broth is just sort of tastes salty or doesn't have like kind of like a complex taste but I think this one in particular is really good you can tell like it feels like they've cooked it in multiple ingredients like boiled for a long time you can taste like the different like maybe like anise seed and different different flavors it's salty but not too salty and then you've got the tendon and the meatballs and the thinly sliced onions you can taste the onions it's really really good yeah 10 out of 10. So uh leave a like if you'd prefer for my sister to do food reviews now because I feel like that was way better than mine. Check this out this is like a shrimp cake you can see the shrimp tails and stuff in there that kind of just deep fried and cooked with some green onions it looks like maybe. Well that was the culmination of a six-year adventure we didn't know we were going to have and I would say it's everything I hoped it would be. It was so fun so serendipitous six years ago we were in Vancouver now we're here amazing. Let's go explore more. Saying goodbye to my sister I decided to head down into the city and to explore a little bit on my own going to some of the places that I really wasn't going to go to with the children. The first of these was the War Remnants Museum. I read online this museum gets around a million visitors a year and it has a large collection of 20,000 documents on its three different floors. I was told that it was designed to show the impact of the war on Vietnam and especially on the civilians that suffered. Do note that I wouldn't recommend going here with children there's a lot of things you probably don't want them to see especially the impacts of Agent Orange and some of the prison exhibits. That is a sobering museum the realities of war are horrific. We're going to continue on to the Independence Palace. From there I decided to continue exploring the city on foot so I walked seven minutes to our next stop. This was my first time crossing streets without my sister or her husband with me and I have to say it is pretty terrifying. If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about look up crossing streets in Vietnam on YouTube and you'll find lots of videos. The Independence Palace goes back to French colonial rule in the late 1800s. This is a newer structure that was built in the 1960s after it was damaged during a bombing. On the day I was there some of the rooms were closed but this is still a massive structure it's five stories tall and there really is a lot that you can see in here. It's pretty unique how some of these rooms are basically frozen in time and you can go inside of them and see different maps and things discussing war strategies. Plus if you head up to the second floor you can actually walk out on the balcony that overlooks the grounds. When I was there the cost was around two dollars US to tour it and it was all self-guided so you could just explore as much as you like. This really is a fascinating place to explore so well preserved and so much history to see. Outside near the fountain they have a tank sitting there and they have information about that famous photo that I'm sure you've seen of the end of the Vietnam war. After leaving the palace there was a cafe right outside the main gate and I stopped in there to get a drink and a snack since it was a hot day. The coffee in Vietnam is seriously on another level it's so strong so good. So the Independence Palace is right there and we walk down here and we're going to the Notre Dame Cathedral which is right there. What's interesting about Ho Chi Minh is that in district one you'll find most of the historic spots and you can actually walk to all of them in a few hours which is what I'm doing in this video. The church as you see it today was built in 1880 and it's an architectural marvel but unfortunately it's been going through a massive restoration project that began in 2017 and you can't actually see the facade. It's cool to see these old pictures of what it used to look like and what it will look like again one day. That really is a beautiful building I hope I can come back to see it when the scaffolding's down. And then right across the street is the next point of interest the post office. This spot started as a telegram department in the mid-1800s and then by the 1880s they needed to build a bigger structure which is the post office that you see today. It's pretty unique to see inside but it's overrun by tourist stores so there's not really much you can do. That being said you can get a postcard outside and then send it inside if you're interested. I didn't realize that you would need six different stamps to send out a postcard and so we had a hard time even fitting them on the envelope. Just in case you're wondering if you buy those cards outside which I was really excited to buy it cost a lot to send so it was like a dollar fifty per card outside but then it was like three dollars per card to send so just know that going in. Right next to the post office is an area known as Book Street which is really cool to walk down. Book Street is another place that I wasn't expecting but that I loved when I was exploring the city. There's all sorts of bookstores and coffee shops just a cool place to browse a little bit. There's a collection of over 20 different book stalls and basically the entire street is lined with books on both sides and even books down the middle of some of the parts. Look at this bookshop it even has a tree grown through it. From here I continued my self-guided walking tour by making my way south and I have to say this is one of the best ways to experience the city is just to wander around and see what you find. Next up we walked around the People's Committee building which is popular for photos since it's a beautiful old building from the early 1900s and it has a statue of Ho Chi Minh out front that people often take photos with. And then from there it's only about a five minute walk over the Saigon Opera House. This is another leftover from French colonial rule as it said that they wanted to create the atmosphere of Paris in the heart of Saigon. This building opened its doors in the 1900s and I would have loved to have gone inside but I just got to see it from outside. It's really awesome how walkable the city is assuming that you can cross the street at some of these places but you can see a lot of it in just one day of exploring. For my last stop on this walking tour of downtown Ho Chi Minh City I headed over to Cafe Apartments and actually met up with my brother-in-law to go up and experience it. That's the Cafe Apartments right there and each one of those places are different drink spots you can go visit. So they have an elevator that you can pay for or you can just take the stairs for free. This place started as apartments but then in the 2010s with the rent still low creatives moved in and they started to form cafes design studios bookstores and co-working spaces. I can see why people pay for the elevator it's a lot of stairs. We headed up to a coffee shop on the seventh floor and grabbed a seat outside even though it's hot and humid. This is what you do at Cafe Apartment you find the place you want to eat or drink and you can sit inside or you can come out on the deck and look out over the city. So we're getting a coffee we're just gonna sit and relax for a little bit. I really love this spot it's just such a unique thing to do in Ho Chi Minh City. Look at that I got sprinkles in my coffee I got a little hand clapper. Cheers. Vietnamese is Mot Hai Ba Yo. I mean look this is a touristy spot but this is also a pretty cool place to have a cup of coffee. Look at this dude just sitting on the side of the building running tape across that pole. I also fell in love with the salted coffee while I was in Vietnam so definitely try that. Yeah it's a fun experience it's worth doing while you're here probably worth taking the elevator though. In case you're wondering the elevator was around 3,000 which is about 10 cents USD. Leaving Cafe Apartment we decided to get a grab and head over to one of the other historical spots that I wanted to see known as the Pink Church. It said online that it was open but when we got there it was closed for renovations and they didn't have a date when it was planning to be open. From here we headed back and met up with the family to go over to the Capybara Cafe to end our time in Ho Chi Minh City. It says don't worry be Capy. The Capy Cafe is located right along the Saigon River in District 2 and it is part of a gated community so you have to check in at the main gate and then a staff can take you down to the entrance to the cafe. Once you're there you'll pay to access the area where the Capybara are and you can also pay to buy food if you want to feed them yourself. I think this is the first time I've ever seen one of these animals in real life and definitely the first time I've ever had any interaction with them. This is amazing. That is such a weird noise for such a big animal. As I'm sure you can tell this was a huge highlight for my kids experience in Vietnam but even for Amy and I who had never interacted with the Capybara before it was pretty cool to see these large creatures. And with that our time in Ho Chi Minh City is done but that's not the end of our time in Vietnam. When it's posted you can explore Ha Long Bay with us, Hanoi and some of the other places that we visited. Alright we'll see you on the next one.