Destination Vietnam

• Saigon
• Mekong Delta
• Dalat
• Phan Thiet
• Nha Trang
• Danang and Hoi An
• Hue
• Hanoi and Haiphong
• Halong Bay

Saigon

Saigon, surely one of the most evocative place names in Asia and definitely one of its most extraordinary cities.

The most Western in atmosphere of Vietnam’s cities, Ho Chi Minh City (to use it’s official name – although to residents and visitors alike it is universally and affectionately known as Saigon) has a population of 6 million, and a booming free-market economy. It is a city of amazing contrasts: elegant new international hotels, exclusive restaurants and trendy bars side-by-side with roadside noodle stalls, street children and vociferous cyclo drivers. Golf courses, bowling alleys and shopping malls vie for space with fruit and vegetable markets, pagodas and karaoke rooms.

Bustling, booming, crowded, noisy - all words that barely scratch the surface of the addictive and often mesmerising chaos that is Saigon.

And yet there are the elegant colonial French boulevards and buildings, the Cathedral, the riverfront, the quiet moments at a sidewalk cafe watching the world literally go by you at breakneck speed. Saigon. A city that is almost indescribable and completely unforgettable.