Saigon Sights: Worth It? An Honest Look
Nine sights carry Ho Chi Minh City’s marquee reputation, and they don’t all deserve it equally. The War Remnants Museum earns every bit of the two hours it asks for. Notre-Dame Cathedral, closed to tourists since 2017, does not earn the stop most 2024-era lists still send people to. Ranked here by whether the ticket, the time, or the walk is actually worth it, not by which one photographs best.
| Rank | Sight | District | Cost + time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | War Remnants Museum | District 3 | 40,000 VND, 2 hours |
| 2 | Reunification Palace | District 1 | ~40,000-65,000 VND, 1 hour |
| 3 | Cholon and Binh Tay Market | District 5 | Free to browse, 2-3 hours |
| 4 | Jade Emperor Pagoda | District 1/3 border | Free, 30-45 min |
| 5 | Ben Thanh Market | District 1 | Free entry, 1 hour |
| 6 | Landmark 81 SkyView | Binh Thanh/Thu Duc | ~420,000-500,000 VND, 1 hour |
| 7 | Bitexco Saigon Skydeck | District 1 | ~240,000 VND, 1 hour |
| 8 | Central Post Office | District 1 | Free, 20 min |
| 9 | Notre-Dame Cathedral | District 1 | Free, exterior only, 15 min |
War Remnants Museum: the one sight that actually earns “must-see”
Adult admission is 40,000 VND (about US$1.50), open 7:30am-5:30pm with ticket sales cutting off before closing. The exhibits on the American War, captured hardware, war photography, the Agent Orange rooms, are unflinching, and two hours is a realistic minimum, not padding. Book straight through the museum’s own site . If a visit only has room for one paid sight, this is it.
Reunification Palace: worth it for the gates alone
Basic entry runs about 40,000 VND, a combo ticket with an added exhibition closer to 65,000 VND, and the ticket window closes around 3:30pm. This is the former South Vietnamese presidential palace, preserved largely as it stood on 30 April 1975 when a tank crashed through its gates, ending the war. Full details sit on the palace’s own site .
Is Cholon worth a special trip from District 1?
Yes, more than Ben Thanh Market is. Binh Tay Market is a colonial-era wholesale market that reads far more local than Ben Thanh’s tourist-facing stalls, and Thien Hau Temple next door, a 19th-century Cantonese temple to the sea goddess Mazu, is genuinely active rather than staged for visitors passing through.
Jade Emperor Pagoda and Ben Thanh Market: free, and worth the hour each
The Jade Emperor Pagoda (free, roughly 7am-6pm) is a working Taoist temple thick with incense and carved wooden deities, better for a quiet hour than Ben Thanh Market’s interior, which runs 6am-6pm with 1,400-plus stalls but tourist-inflated prices. Go to Ben Thanh in the morning for the atmosphere, then eat at the night-market ring that opens after 6pm instead of inside.
Landmark 81 versus Bitexco: is either deck actually worth it?
Once, yes, not both. Landmark 81, at 461 metres, has been Vietnam’s tallest building since 2018; its SkyView deck runs roughly 420,000 VND on weekdays and 500,000 VND on weekends. Bitexco’s Saigon Skydeck , around 240,000 VND and open 9:30am-9:30pm, was Vietnam’s tallest when it opened in 2010 but hasn’t held that title since. Landmark 81 wins on stats and price-per-metre; Bitexco’s real edge is its rooftop bar, worth more than a ticket-only deck visit.
The Central Post Office and Notre-Dame: one stop, not two full visits
The Central Post Office, free entry, open roughly 7am-7pm, is still a working post office with a genuinely striking vaulted iron interior, built 1886-1891 by French architect Alfred Foulhoux, not Gustave Eiffel despite the popular misattribution. Notre-Dame Cathedral across the square has been closed to tourist visits since 2017 for a restoration now pushed toward 2027; the exterior facade is worth the five-minute look from the square, but don’t plan around going inside in 2026.
The honest verdict
Worth the trip, with a shorter checklist than most guides admit. The War Remnants Museum and Reunification Palace justify a full morning, Cholon justifies an afternoon that Ben Thanh alone doesn’t, and one observation deck, not two, closes out the skyline box. Skip stacking both towers and skip planning around Notre-Dame’s interior; neither adds anything a 2026 visit actually needs.
For the day-by-day version of this list, see our 2-day and 5-day itineraries, or the full context behind each pick in our Ho Chi Minh City guide . For the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta, both deliberately left off this city-only list, see our Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam guide instead. Whatever else gets cut, keep the War Remnants Museum’s ticket-cutoff time in mind; it closes sales before the listed closing hour, not at it.