Saigon: Tickets, Hours and How to Visit
Rank Saigon’s sights by how much they actually reward your time, not by default tourist-trail order, and the War Remnants Museum comes out on top, followed closely by the Reunification Palace and a sunset skyline deck. Notre-Dame Cathedral only gets an exterior visit, it’s been closed for restoration since 2017. Everything below is walkable from District 1, ticketed clearly, and worth the time it costs.
| Sight | District | Cost | Time needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| War Remnants Museum | District 3 | 40,000 VND adult, 20,000 VND ages 6-16 | 1.5-2 hours |
| Reunification Palace | District 1 | 40,000 VND basic, ~65,000 VND combo | 1-1.5 hours |
| Ben Thanh Market | District 1 | Free to browse | 1 hour, more after dark |
| Landmark 81 SkyView | Binh Thanh / Thu Duc side | 300,000-500,000 VND | About 1 hour |
| Bitexco Skydeck | District 1 | 240,000 VND flat | 45 minutes-1 hour |
| Jade Emperor Pagoda | District 1 | Free (donations welcome) | 30-45 minutes |
| Binh Tay Market + Thien Hau Temple | Cholon / District 5 | Free to browse | About 2 hours |
| Notre-Dame exterior + Central Post Office | District 1 | Free | 30 minutes |
1. War Remnants Museum, the one to budget real time for
28 Vo Van Tan, District 3, 40,000 VND adult, 20,000 VND ages 6-16, free under 6, open 7:30am-5:30pm daily with ticket sales cutting off earlier for both the morning and afternoon sessions. War photography, Agent Orange exhibits, and captured US military hardware in the courtyard make this genuinely heavy, not a casual half-hour browse. Verify current hours on the official museum site before you go.
2. Reunification Palace, where the war visibly ended
135 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, District 1, roughly 40,000 VND basic entry or 65,000 VND for the combo ticket with the exhibition, ticket window 8am-3:30pm. The gates here are where the tank broke through on 30 April 1975. Full visitor details sit on the official Reunification Palace site .
Is the Bitexco Skydeck or Landmark 81 SkyView the better view? Landmark 81 is Vietnam’s tallest building at 461 meters, taller and newer, at 300,000-500,000 VND depending on weekday, weekend or combo package. Bitexco’s Saigon Skydeck runs a flat 240,000 VND on the 49th floor with a genuinely strong rooftop bar, so a drink with the view there often beats a ticket-only deck. Check current tickets for either deck on GetYourGuide .
3. Ben Thanh Market, day and night are two different visits
Le Loi Street, District 1, covered market open 6am-6pm, over 1,400 stalls dating to 1914. After 6pm the surrounding streets turn into a street food and souvenir night market running to roughly 10pm, genuinely the better half of the two visits. Bargain hard, the first quoted price is never the real one.
4. Jade Emperor Pagoda, the calmest stop on this list
73 Mai Thi Luu, District 1, free with donations welcome, open roughly 7am-6pm, extended 5am-7pm on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month, the busiest and most atmospheric times to visit this ornate Taoist temple.
5. Cholon: Binh Tay Market and Thien Hau Temple
Vietnam’s largest Chinatown, technically spanning Districts 5, 6, 10 and 11, centered on the colonial-era Binh Tay Market and the 19th-century Thien Hau Temple, built for the sea goddess Mazu. This reads far more local than Ben Thanh, and the street food here rewards a slow wander over a checklist.
6. Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Central Post Office
Notre-Dame has been under restoration since 2017 and stays closed to tourist visits in 2026, exterior photos only, completion keeps slipping toward 2027. The free Central Post Office across the square (open roughly 7am-7pm) is often wrongly credited to Gustave Eiffel for its iron trusswork, the actual architect was Alfred Foulhoux.
Booking a place to sleep near all of this matters more than most first-timers expect: District 1 puts every sight on this list within a short walk or a five-minute Grab, so compare current District 1 hotel rates on Agoda before you commit to a neighborhood further out. For the day-by-day version of this list, work through the 2-day up to 7-day itinerary , or the full Saigon travel guide for everything else, food, districts and safety included.