Make Us Your Homepage     Send To A Friend     Bookmark Tours

More to Saigon than just gridlock traffic

by admin | post a comment

Strolling around Saigon can be a fascinating experience with the hurry of pedestrians and the bustle of heavy traffic. Saigon is bustling, hustling and dusty, even smoky. Saigon has no the ancientness of thousand-year-old Athens City or the magnificence of Paris. Saigon is young, small, but entices tourists thanks to its distinctions in culture, history, food and people.

Tourists take a cyclo ride on Truong Dinh Street in HCMC's District 1.

“Saigon is too weird, amidst the center are towering green trees, making the city poetic,” said a tourist from the Netherlands.

Saigon is also made interesting by its small corner markets which are always busy in a jubilant ambiance of trading. Some trading streets have existed for a long time, such as a 200-year-old trading street in Cho Lon (China Town) in District 5 and a rice selling street called Tran Chanh Chieu that was born in 1750 in the Chinese community.

Those interested in antiques can roam Le Cong Kieu Street in District 1. This small street holds about 40 shops selling antique lamps in thousands of shapes and sizes, ceramics, chairs, tables and clocks. At the end of the street are paintings, wood works and parallel sentences. Coming here, tourists feel they are lost in an antique museum.

Colorful flowers and fruits abound on Le Thanh Ton Street next to Ben Thanh Market. There, tourists can purchase all kinds of Vietnamese fruit and multicolored flowers.

If tourists want to wander colorful streets, Hai Thuong Lan Ong and Trang Tu in District 5 are recommended.

Coming here, tourists can learn more about the daily life and customs of Chinese people and can satisfy their eyes with cute ornaments, especially near Christmas. Luong Nhu Hoc in this district is dazzling with red and yellow dragon costumes, bonnets and gowns for royal and traditional drama performances.

Exploring Saigon on foot, by bicycle or by cyclo to take a taste of Saigon life gives a sense that Saigon is also poetic, charming and gentle, not only bustling and hustling as standard complaints go.

VietNamNet/SGT

Other news for Tuesday 01 December, 2009

• Dalat Flower Festival 2010
• Nice rice rolled with soul
• Where natural beauty, legend unite
• Gathering steam in Sapa
• Foreign visitors to Vietnam on the rise
• Southern provinces to launch tourism road show in Cambodia
• Discovering Indochina by road
• $2.77 million promotes tourism in Vietnam

View all news for Tuesday 01 December, 2009 on one page

News for Monday 30 November, 2009

• Smorgasbord of gratitude
• An autumn paradise off the beaten track
• Ice and snow paints Sapa pure white
• French colonial architecture still marks Gieng Islet
• Trans Air to fly in, Garuda to suspend service
• Ba Den Mountain: creative architecture of nature
• Hoi An now in Hanoi
• Preserving marine life in Nha Trang
• Expert says ’non-smoke industry’ kills environment

View all news for Monday 30 November, 2009 on one page

Recent News

• Saturday 28 November, 2009
• Saturday 14 November, 2009
• Tuesday 10 November, 2009
• Thursday 05 November, 2009
• Sunday 01 November, 2009

News archive