Ho Chi Minh City

Where to shoot

• Reunification Palace — the 1966 presidential palace frozen at the fall of Saigon, with intact basement command rooms and the gates the tanks broke through.
• War Remnants Museum — US aircraft and tanks in the courtyard and unflinching galleries on Agent Orange and wartime photojournalism.
• Cu Chi Tunnels — a preserved section of the guerrilla tunnel network about 1.5-2 hours northwest, with booby-trap displays and crawlable passages.
• Cholon — Saigon's Chinatown, home to the incense-filled 18th-century Thien Hau Temple and the wholesale lanes of Binh Tay Market.
• Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica — a red-brick French colonial cathedral with twin spires at the city's heart.
• Central Post Office — an ornate colonial-era post office beside the cathedral, with a vaulted interior hall.
• Ben Thanh Market — a bustling covered market of food, goods and produce stalls, busiest in the morning.
• Bui Vien Street — a frenetic nightlife strip of neon, bars and street food, alive after dark.

When to go

December to February for dry, slightly less humid weather; in any season, be out by 7am, when the parks fill with tai chi and badminton and the heat is still bearable.

What to eat

Eat com tam (broken rice with a grilled lemongrass pork chop and fried egg) for breakfast, a banh mi from a busy street cart for lunch, and grilled snails and clams on Vinh Khanh food street in the old District 4 at night, washed down with ca phe sua da, iced coffee with condensed milk.

Where to stay

Stay in the old District 1 (Ben Thanh and Saigon wards) between Nguyen Hue and Ben Thanh Market for walking access to nearly everything, or near Bui Vien and Pham Ngu Lao only if you want the noise and the cheapest rooms.