Ho Chi Minh - Scenes around the main Boulevard Nguyen Hue

The main boulevard in Ho Chi Minh.

At the northwest end sits the majestic old colonial style City Hall. At the south east end, towards the Saigon river, to the right you can see the 68 storey Bitexco Financial Tower, the tallest building in Vietnam.

When the Bitexco building was completed in 2010, occupancy rates were dismal at 50%. Recently it has moved to 70%+ occupied mostly by MNCs. It has won a few architectural aw...ards. The first few floors are retail and entertainment outlets and around the area the place comes alive at night.

On both sides of the boulevard are various retail outlets, restaurants and hotels. At the upper end just to the left of City Hall you can see a picture of the old Rex Hotel which has been renovated and relaunched since the end of the war as a 5 star luxury hotel.

Off one side of the boulevard is the french style Municipal Theatre better known as the Saigon Opera House. This is a smaller scale building of a similar one in Hanoi. The theatre is fairly large sitting 500 people. The design of the opera house follows that of the Opera Garnier in Paris. It has never always been used as a theatre though. In the past it was used as a parliament house. After the fall of Saigon, it was restored back to a theatre.

In the evening the boulevard comes alive with crowds out for the views and restaurants full of dinner crowds.

You can imagine this stretch of road becoming livelier over time, perhaps like Orchard Road, La Piazza in Rome or Oxford Street in London. Is it worth buying something along this stretch? That I think depends on tourism growth over the next few years.

Prices here are not cheap as compared to places like HK or Singapore probably due to taxes. There are French boutiques here however I hear horror stories from locals of people getting fakes even buying from the franchised boutiques.

Food is not cheap either unless you go local. At a crowded restaurant in a shopping centre I paid more than 100,000 VND (more than S$6) for a bowl of beef noodles and bubble milk tea. The tea taste funny probably due to the milk they use.

One place I did not go was Ben Thanh the main market selling local stuff. However I did hear that it has become a bit of a tourist trap. Perhaps on my next visit.

Soon Kie