Tours in Ho Chi Minh City

Stand at a crossing in District 1 and watch the motorbikes arrive. They do not stop for you, they flow around you. The trick is to walk slowly and steadily, never to dart, and by the second day you will do it without thinking. That small act of trust tells you most of what you need to know about Ho Chi Minh City.

The centre is easy to read on foot. Wide boulevards lined with trees, then the sudden shade of a narrow alley where someone is grilling meat and someone else is selling iced coffee from a plastic stool. Ben Thanh Market is the obvious starting point, loud and crowded and good for a first bowl of noodles. The Notre-Dame Cathedral and the old Central Post Office sit close together, and the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum are a short walk or ride away. Cholon, the Chinese quarter, rewards an afternoon of temples and herbal shops. Ask a local guide and any of these can become a proper tour.

Then there is the water. Leave the city early and within a couple of hours the noise drops away and the Mekong Delta opens up, a maze of brown rivers, orchards and canals. Around Cai Be you travel by boat between fruit gardens, stop for fresh tropical fruit with live folk music, and see how coconut candy gets made in a family workshop. Afterwards you can cycle the village lanes past traditional wooden houses, where life moves at the pace of a hammock.

Come back to the city in the evening and the pavements fill again. Eat on the street, sit low, and order whatever the next table is having.