1. Independence Palace Dinh Doc Lap or Independence Palace was completed in 1966 after three years of construction.

The plans were drawn by Mr. Ngo Viet Thu, winner of the architectural excellence prize in Rome. The palace was built on the original site of the French governor's headquarters in the 19th century.

President Diem commissioned Mr. Thu to design the new palace and supervised its construction. Unfortunately, the president was assassinated shortly after construction started. The Palace became the home of then President of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu until the fall of Saigon in 1975. It is now called the Reunification Hall with all the original furnishings still kept intact.

2. War Remnants museum

War Remnants Museum

Formerly named "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government [of South Vietnam]", this museum under its more tourist friendlier name "The War Remnants Museum," is a museum that informs visitors both about what the Vietnamese people went through during the Vietnam War, and how the war still affects people today.

War Remnants Museum - Saigon And while most of the issues that are covered in the museum are already well known in the West, what the museum does do is allow you to see the negative affects of these issues up close and personal. For example, one of the key displays, and an issue most Westerners would already know about, is the issue of Agent Orange. What most Westerners wouldn't know, or have seen before, are images of how the toxin actually affects living people and unborn fetuses in various unpleasant ways. At the War Remnants Museum, the display on Agent Orange puts all this on display for the visitor to see. Stepping inside the main squared shaped display building, the display on Agent Orange is the first display you come across. The display contains numerous photos showing people born with deformations due to their families living in areas that were sprayed with Agent Orange. Many of these images are of children born with a bulbous odd shaped head, missing eyes, or limbs twisted and deformed into awkward and acute angles.

Along side these photos are a number of jars containing preserved fetuses. Often the jars contain two fetuses fused together in unnatural ways, or fetuses with odd shaped or missing facials features.

War Remnants Museum - Saigon Sitting peacefully inside their jar of formaldehyde, the orangey-brown color of the formaldehyde offers a sharp contrast to ghostly white fetuses, somewhat highlighting the unpleasant deformities of the fetuses. In both cases the deformed and distorted bodies are not pleasant to look at, but highlight the lack of thought towards future consequences that often happens when people fight wars. Other exhibits at the museum include reconstructions of the Tiger Cages in which the South Vietnamese Government housed political prisoners in on Con Dao Island, and various photo displays on the effects of Napalm, the My Lai massacre and photos about the war in general. The courtyard is also crammed full of old American hardware, including tanks, planes and a huge Chinook helicopter. The thing I remember most about the War Remnants Museum though, was a meeting I had with a young Vietnamese man selling books in the museum courtyard.

War Remnants Museum - Saigon

Walking among the big hulking American tanks and guns sitting benignly in the courtyard, I met a young Vietnamese man selling books to earn money at the museum. There was nothing untoward about that. That was until I realized that the young man was missing his right arm from the elbow down, his left leg and one of his eyes. This was a young man obviously too young to be alive during the Vietnam War, but who's life as he had known it, was blown apart one day by the "remnants" that wars tend to leave behind. In this case a mine. And that is what the War Remnants Museum is good at doing, making you confront the trauma that war causes and highlighting the fact that a large majority of the victims of such wars are often civilians, and that the negative side effects to both soldiers and civilians a like does not stop when the war stops.

3. City post office 4. Nha Tho Duc Ba - Cathedral of our Lady Proposed to be one of France's most ambitious project in Indochina at the time, Rev. Colombert laid the cornerstone for the cathedral on October 7, 1877. Three years later, in 1880, the cathedral was opened to the public. These two dates are inscribed on a marble placard in the cathedral.The bricks used to build the structure were shipped from Marseilles. Artisans from Lorin Company (Chartres, France) were commissioned to create the stained glass windows. The cost of construction was a whopping 2.5 million francs. In 1962, the Vatican gave the cathedral the title Basilique.

5. Ben Thanh market Ben Thanh market has long been one of Saigon's most famous landmark. The market has been in existence since the French occupation. The original market was located on the shores of Ben Nghe river by old fort Gia Dinh. Its proximity to the fort and the river where merchants and soldiers would land was reason for its name (Ben meaning pier or port and Thanh meaning fort). In 1859, when the French invaded Saigon and overtook fort Gia Dinh, Ben Thanh Market was destroyed. It was rebuilt shortly thereafter and remained standing until it was moved to its present location in 1899.

Built on a landfill of what was once a swamp named Bo Ret (Marais Boresse), the new Ben Thanh Market is located in the center of the city. Under the French government, the area around Ben Thanh Market was called Cu Nhac circle (Rond point Cuniac), named after Mr. Cuniac, the person who proposed filling the swamp to create this area. The area was later renamed Cong truong Dien Hong.

Ben Thanh Market - Saigon's Most Popular Market

Love it or hate it, Ben Thanh Market is one of the most recognizable features in Saigon.

Ben Thanh Market Today - Saigon

Having said that, as far as markets go, Ben Thanh Market tends to bring out the best and the worst in Saigon markets. On the one hand, the prices at Ben Thanh are higher than at other markets because it gets so many tourists; many of its stalls are filled with tacky touristy items that you will see every where you go; and you get harassed, grabbed and pressured by sellers like at no other market in Saigon. On the other hand though, Ben Thanh Market is a hugely vibrant and colorful market. Some of the other markets around Saigon can be very sleepy at times, especially after lunch, but because of the busy tourist trade in District 1, Ben Thanh Market is always filled with the sounds and smells of commerce as people bargain and negotiate. And if you are a foreigner the best things about Ben Thanh Market is that most of the sellers can communicate in English to some degree, and even if they can't there is the ever present calculator to help smooth over any language difficulties. And while many of the shops do contain only tacky touristy items, Ben Thanh Market does also have a good range of clothes shops.

Inside Ben Thanh Market - Saigon And when the doors of Ben Thanh Market close at about five or six in the evening, the night market starts up outside. Spilling over into the neighboring streets, the night market is just as vibrant as the inside market, filled with clothes and shoe stalls and a dozen or so semi permanent restaurants. It is a colorful location where you can rest in the cool evening air and try some Vietnamese food and unwind after a long hard day's shopping or sightseeing. Historically Ben Thanh market, in a round-about-way, has its origins way back in the 17th century.

At the start of the 17th century vendors would group together on the streets near or around the Saigon River, near where soldiers would land and merchants traveling up and down the river would load and unload their goods for sale.

Ben Thanh Market On Nguyen Hue Street Saigon Over the years this impromptu market became known as Ben Nghe or Ben Thanh Market due to its location near the wharf (Ben) and the Turtle Citadel (or Quy Thanh). When the French conquered the Saigon Citadel in 1856 though (Saigon at the time was fortress), they rebuilt a large thatch roofed mud-floored Ben Thanh Market near what is today Ham Nghi Street and Nguyen Hue Street (Ham Nghi and Nguyen Hue were canals at the time). Located conveniently near the wharfs, this market did a rip-roaring trade, but perhaps a victim of its own success and popularity, the thatch roofed market burned to the ground in 1870 in a large fire. Afterwards the French rebuilt the market in the same location but with steel frames, this new steel framed market became the largest market in all Saigon.

New Ben Thanh Market - Saigon In 1912 under the orders of the Saigon Mayor, Ben Thanh Market moved to a new building located on marshy ground opposite the Quach Thi Trang Square at the end of Le Loi Street.

They named this new market the New Ben Thanh Market. The old Ben Thanh Market is now popular as the old Market in Ton That Dam Street selling canned goods, drinks and fresh foodstuffs, although it operates on a much smaller scale after loosing much of its area to the treasury office and the Banking Institute over the years. The New Ben Thanh Market was officially opened in 1914 in a grand ceremony, with throngs of people coming in from nearby provinces to see the new market. Now only known as Ben Thanh Market this is the Ben Thanh Market you can see and visit today. While Ben Thanh Market went through a major renovation in 1985 to make it bigger, the clock tower and the southern gate are still the original 1912 building.

Quan An Ngon

Quan An Ngon - Saigon If you are ever walking along Nam Ky Khoi Nghia around lunch time, you might have seen the queues out side this Vietnamese restaurant. Located in an old French colonial building, this restaurant is dirt cheap. The price of the food here is almost comparable with the price you would pay for street food. In fact when I went there the a can of 7up, at 18,000 dong, cost as much as one of the main dishes.

The reason it is so cheap, is because the restaurant is actually a collection of street stalls brought together to form one restaurant. When you walk through the entrance you will see, if you look left, a row of different cooking areas, these are the different stalls, and depending on what you order from the menu, the waiter will get the food you order from the appropriate stall. By operating in this manner Quan An Ngon offers the opportunity to dine in lovely surroundings while sampling a wide variety of Vietnamese dishes and good service at Vietnamese prices. Try it!