2 Days in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - Best Travel Itinerary for Saigon

Today I want to bring you my guide to spending 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City. This bustling metropolis is the largest city in Vietnam, and it’s worth a visit for its cultural highlights, food, shopping, and more.

2 Days in Ho Chi Minh City

After almost 3 weeks of traveling in Asia, exhaustion started to overtake me. I’d been to 3 countries—one of them 3 times—and hadn’t spent more than 3 nights in any one place.

But I still had another destination on my itinerary before my trip was over: Vietnam. I was off to spend 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City.

At first I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of visiting Saigon, as many of the locals still call it.

Everything I’d heard suggested it was a big, busy city that would overwhelm me with its noise, traffic, and energy. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task.

But as soon as I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from Singapore, the energy enveloped me. The bustling motorcycles, the newly-built skyscrapers, and the economic vibrancy imbued me with their spark.

Gone were my weariness and exhaustion. In their place was a renewed sense of adventure and an excitement for exploration.

Day 1 in Ho Chi Minh City

And explore I did. I only had 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City, and I knew I needed to maximize every minute of my time.

I checked into my hotel, the Park Hyatt Saigon, in the morning and set off to discover the sightseeing highlights of Ho Chi Minh City.

As always, this started with a bit of culinary exploration. My hotel’s concierge directed me to a nearby restaurant called Pho 2000.

As I dodged throngs of the city’s iconic motorcycles on the approach, I noticed the restaurant’s slogan was “Pho for the President.”

I started to wonder which president, but as soon as I was seated at one of the many tables crammed into the small space, I saw a photo of Bill Clinton on the wall. Apparently he had visited the noodle shop in 2000.

If the pho was good enough for a visiting head of state, I was sure it would be good enough for me. And it was. Despite the restaurant’s basic decor and business-like atmosphere, the pho was amazing.

I loaded the steaming bowl of soup with all the accompaniments and had myself an early afternoon feast. It was a great way to start my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City.

Full of pho, my next stop was conveniently located across the street. Ben Thanh Market was a large covered bazaar in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. As I entered, my eyes adjusted to the low light and narrow passages between shops.

I started in an area filled with textile stalls selling everything from silk scarves to touristy T-shirts.

Proceeding slowly enough to indulge my sensory overload, I shook my head absentmindedly as the women tending the shops called out to me and touched my arm to get my attention.

Farther into the market I passed by shops full of everything from rows and rows of brightly bejeweled shoes to beautiful bowls shiny with lacquer.

Some shops sold enormous earrings and jade necklaces, while others sold traditional Vietnamese straw hats. Everywhere locals and tourists mingled and haggled while shopkeepers sat on low stools eating bowls of rice.

Speaking of food, I next wandered into the food stalls. Everything from tropical fruit to unidentifiable meat was for sale.

Tiny tables and chairs that looked like they belonged in a preschool classroom were filled with foreigners getting their first tastes of local foods and locals getting their daily dose of their favorite pho.

Heading back out of the market, I passed by rows of electric orange dried shrimp, shimmering silk scarves, and touristy trinkets before finding myself in the sunshine.

It was time for the next stop on my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City: the museums.

The first Ho Chi Minh City museum I visited was the Independence Palace.

Originally serving as the presidential palace of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, the building became a museum shortly after Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975.

Most of the rooms in the palace remained exactly as they were when the North’s tanks crashed through the gates at the end of the war, making the museum a historic snapshot in time.

The Independence Palace itself was an interesting work of modern architecture.

It stayed true to the warm climate by incorporating open-air breezeways and glassed-in meeting rooms that could open their doors to the elements on hot days.

The furnishings were as opulent as one would expect to find in a presidential palace, as was the art. The rooms themselves ranged in function from reception rooms to map rooms and screening rooms.

In the basement of the Independence Palace were the war rooms with their multicolored rotary phones and clunky transmitting equipment. There was also a target practice room for those in need of improving their shooting skills.

On the roof and outside of the building were instruments of war, including a military helicopter and two replica tanks of the kind that brought down the gates and ended the Vietnam War.

Once I’d made the rounds to all the rooms, I walked a few blocks to continue my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City at the other main modern museum: the War Remnants Museum.

If the Independence Palace was meant to show a snapshot in time, the War Remnants Museum was meant to show an interpretation of it.

Dedicated to documenting the atrocities committed by the US during the Vietnam War, the War Remnants Museum housed several photographic exhibitions.

One showed photos of deformed children that were the byproduct of their parents’ exposure to napalm, Agent Orange, and other weapons of chemical warfare.

Another highlighted the work and plight of press photographers who died while embedded with combat units on both sides of the fighting.

A third room was dedicated to documenting more atrocities. It included several deformed human fetuses in formaldehyde. It wasn’t the most uplifting place.

Outside in the warm Ho Chi Minh City sunshine sat numerous American military aircraft and tanks that had been taken by the North Vietnamese during the war.

I walked through them for a bit before it was time to head back to the Park Hyatt Saigon.

In the evening I continued my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City by taking the advice of the concierge again. I went to a restaurant called Cuc Gach Quan.

In a ‘small world’ moment, I ran into a business contact of mine from London as soon as I arrived, and joined her for dinner.

The restaurant was not only special in that it served Vietnamese dishes that are usually only cooked and eaten in local homes, but also because it was located in a former house on a residential street in Ho Chi Minh City.

The interior featured a series of rooms, some of which could only be reached by walking on a plank bridge over a tiny pond and then climbing a up ladder in an interior courtyard.

The food at Cuc Gach Quan was excellent, and matched the uniqueness of the space in its diversity of flavors. We enjoyed a plethora of vegetable dishes as well as chicken and fish, and we left dinner feeling pleasantly full.

Day 2 in Ho Chi Minh City

The next morning I continued my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City by getting up early and setting off to explore another museum.

This one was located across the river and was dedicated to Ho Chi Minh. Appropriately, it was called the Ho Chi Minh Museum.

I arrived to find that the museum was only open for 20 more minutes before the two-hour afternoon break with which all the city’s museums seemed to want to frustrate visitors.

Still, in my quick visit I learned about the early part of Ho Chi Minh’s life and career. Many of his personal possessions were on display, including his glasses.

There was also a vast number of photographs, letters, speeches, and other memorabilia on the museum’s walls, taking visitors through the chronology of the leader’s rise to power.

After visiting the museum I continued my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City by heading up to Dong Khoi Street to check out the shopping.

I went in and out of shops selling everything from scarves and bags to suits and dresses, then took the third recommendation of my hotel’s concierge and went to lunch a restaurant called L’Usine.

L’Usine was tucked away up a flight of stairs at the end of a small shopping arcade. If I hadn’t specifically been told to go there, I never would’ve known it existed. And that would’ve been a shame.

Part cafe, part fashion boutique, and part art gallery, L’Usine was several small slices of expat Vietnam rolled into one space.

The interior was meant to evoke a 1930s garment factory, and the concrete floors and whitewashed walls gave it a cool industrial feel.

The food, on the other hand, gave it a warm, welcoming feel.

While most of the menu somewhat disappointingly featured Western food, my Saigon sandwich was bursting with carrots and cilantro in addition to the juicy pork inside the baguette.

At the end of my meal I ignored the normally-enticing option of Mariage Freres tea and instead finished with a Vietnamese coffee. It was milky, sweet, and exactly what I wanted.

After perusing the local and international fashion at the boutique, I left L’Usine and continued my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City by heading back to a nearby street to check out a spa I’d passed by.

The spa was accessed through a stone footpath in a garden, and felt delightfully tranquil after the bustling street outside. I walked in and was greeted by a woman from Colorado, who apparently ran the place.

I had two hours before I had to be back at the Park Hyatt Saigon to check out, so I decided to get a massage and a pedicure. Neither was the best I’ve ever had, but they were still relaxing and enjoyable.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book by the outdoor pool at the Park Hyatt Saigon.

At dinnertime, I finished off my 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City by taking a taxi to yet another recommended restaurant, this one called Tib. As with the previous night’s restaurant, I’d heard good things about it.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was a bit disappointing. The service was glacially slow despite the fact that I occupied one of only two full tables in the place, and my fish in a clay pot took almost an hour to arrive. When it did, it was just okay.