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Orientation
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Ho Chi Minh City
is divided into eighteen districts, though tourists rarely travel beyond districts One, Three and Five, unless it's to visit the tunnels at Cu Chi
. The city proper hugs the west bank of the Saigon River, and its central area, District One, nestles in the hinge formed by the confluence of the river with the silty Ben Nghe Channel; traditionally the
French Quarter
of the city, this area is still widely known as Saigon. Dong Khoi is its backbone, and around the T-shape it forms along with Le Duan Boulevard are scattered most of the city's museums and colonial remnants, including the late nineteenth-century Notre Dame Cathedral, the
Hotel Continental,
once a bastion of French high society, and the ostentatious former Hotel de Ville, which now houses the People's Committee. But, except for
Cholon
, Ho Chi Minh's frenetic Chinatown, the city doesn't carve up into homogeneous districts, so visitors have to do a dot-to-dot between sights. These are almost invariably places that relate to the American War, such as the
War Remnants Museum
, the
Revolutionary Museum
and the
Presidential Palace
. But there are many religious sights too, most notably the
Jade Emperor Pagoda
. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Viet Nam,
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