- Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City - Whose Markets Are Better?
- Entertainment in Vietnam
- City attractions and surrounding beauties
In the old days, when the "big brother" of the Soviet Union was friends with the "younger" Vietnam, any resident of the USSR could answer the question of what Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh is known for, what sights there are in each of these cities. It is much more difficult for a modern tourist to decide which of the cities of Vietnam will be more interesting or more fun. Let's try to find points of contact and difference in rest, evaluating certain positions that are attractive from the point of view of foreigners.
Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City - Whose Markets Are Better?
Vietnamese markets are fundamentally different from what the residents of this country offer to Russians in Moscow, St. Petersburg or Yekaterinburg. The Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi market is a visiting card of the city, not seeing it means the same as being in Paris and never looking at the Eiffel Tower, or coming to rest on the sea and never taking a dip.
In Hanoi, several streets have actually turned into one huge Hang Da bazaar, where you can buy and sell almost everything, from clothes to some kind of reptile pickled in the syrup of an unknown plant. The Cho Hom market offers factory-made goods, from elite to terrifying counterfeits, with the first group at reasonable prices, counterfeits for mere pennies. For wholesale buyers, the road lies to the Dong Xuan market, where there are many interesting things and relatively low prices.
Until now, the old name Saigon is more popular than the new one - Ho Chi Minh City, given in honor of the deceased Vietnamese leader. This city, despite the absence of a capital status, is the main cultural and commercial center of the country. The latter affects the number of stores, shopping centers and markets. Moreover, in the city you can find both expensive boutiques and second-hand shops. The most luxurious souvenirs are silk, lacquer miniatures and traditional-style bowls.
Entertainment in Vietnam
The main entertainment in Hanoi is associated with walking around the city, visiting markets, palaces, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and museums. In the Vietnamese capital, there are many institutions that store the country's spiritual treasures, two of them are of the greatest interest to tourists: the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology, which introduces the culture and traditions of different ethnic groups of the country, and the Army Museum, which houses huge collections of weapons, including those from the USSR. …
There is also a distinctive feature - free excursions are held in the capital, students act as guides who are ready to talk for hours about their beloved city and its attractions. Of entertainment in Ho Chi Minh City, excursions to markets and walks around the city prevail again; for children, the city is interesting for its museums, the presence of a beautiful botanical garden and a zoo.
City attractions and surrounding beauties
Ho Chi Minh City
The culture of Southeast Asia has always attracted European tourists; local pagodas, temples and stupas, which were erected either by gods or aliens, but not by the Vietnamese, seem to him as mysterious structures. Of the architectural gems in Hanoi, the most attractive are the following: Kinh Thien Tomb; Pagoda on the Pillar; Temple of the White Horse; Flag tower.
Around the capital Lake Kho-Tai, whose name is translated primitively simply - "Western", there are imperial palaces worthy of a visit by any tourist. Hanoi's "Ville-Francaise" district by its name alone gives a hint which architectural monuments can be seen here. In this part of the Vietnamese capital, buildings built by the French colonialists are carefully preserved.
Ho Chi Minh City, like the capital of Vietnam, pleases with a large number of architectural monuments, "architectural highlights" - Vinh Nghiem, the largest pagoda, the Reunification Palace. In this city, you can also find traces of the French colonialists, and the Europeans left a good memory of themselves - the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
The simplest comparison of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi does not allow us to single out a clear winner. Hanoi, on the one hand, is the capital of Vietnam and therefore has many important monuments and memorials. On the other hand, most often it acts as a transit point on the way of tourists to the sea coast.
The former Saigon is more attractive in terms of tourism, therefore Ho Chi Minh City is chosen by tourists who:
- want oriental exoticism;
- dream of seeing Asian Notre Dame in order to compare it with French;
- they love to walk around the markets, bargain and buy all sorts of mysterious items and unusual products.
Hanoi is visited by foreign guests who:
- plan to visit places related to the ancient history of the country;
- adore religious oriental buildings;
- they like to walk along the streets, getting acquainted with the culture of the East.
