Bến Thành Market and a Morning Walk

Our second full day in Vietnam started with a brisk early morning walk to Ben Thanh Market, dodging traffic and motorbikes the whole way.

Saigon's largest market goes back to the early 17th century, when merchants and traders set up shop together near the Saigon River. The market as we know it was formally established by the French colonial government in 1859. The current building was constructed in 1912 and renovated in 1985.

It reminded me a lot of Central Market in Phnom Penh. It makes sense; both markets were built around the same time by the government of French Indochina.

The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: Wat Phnom and Central Market

I was hoping to find a thriving local market but was slightly disappointed to just find row after row of souvenir stalls. I know that people are just making a living and will sell whatever makes them the most profit, but it's kind of a shame to see this historic old market just full of t-shirts and souvenir junk.

After barely surviving the chaotic walk to the market, I was in need of a coffee. We took a walk towards the river and stopped at another cafe apartment on the way.

I decided to order a coconut coffee.

Even though we spent a month in Ho Chi Minh City a few years back, I guess we never made our way to the riverside! I kind of wish we had. It was a lovely and peaceful place, quite different from the hectic traffic and chaos that was all around us.

Like in Bangkok, there's a river boat system called the Saigon Waterbus that runs up and down the river each day. If we had had a little more time in town, it might have been fun to have taken the river bus to the furthest stop and back in order to get a different view of city life.

For nostalgia's sake, we decided to walk to Saigon Center, a shopping mall where we had spent A LOT of time during our month in Saigon. It was the rainy season, and we would often have to duck into the mall to get out of the sudden rainstorms which would break over the city. We also did our grocery shopping there and would walk around the mall to pass the time if we didn't know what else to do.

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I don't know if we just missed it before, but this time we followed some people up the escalators past what we thought was the top floor to the roof of the mall to discover a very nice rooftop garden area! I also wish we had known about this place back in 2018! Our big problem with HCMC back then was that we found it very stressful and had trouble finding somewhere to relax. If we had known about this rooftop, I imagine we would have spent a lot of time up there with a cup of coffee.

My second impressions of HCMC are more or less the same as my first. It's a hectic city, and an exhausting one. There's a lot to see and do, but I still find it a little overwhelming and, to be honest, less interesting than Hanoi. There's still a lot of southern Vietnam that I haven't explored, and I'll definitely be coming back to Saigon someday, but I think my next visit to Vietnam might be to another part of the country.