Ho CHi Minh City - Saigon

What to Expect in Ho Chi Minh City?

Travelling to HCMC can be very fun if you understand a little bit about this city and most importantly, you learned to travel like a local!

1)When choosing transportation From the airport, 2 options:

A) Taxi

If you have luggagesss and expect someone to drop you right in fornt of your hotel, go for a taxi BUT NOT in front of the airport exit, they will CHARGED you a lot! Walk a bit to get a taxi outside for cheaper rate. 

Expect to pay around USD 10 to downtown.

B) Local Bus 152 (Strongly Recommended)

CHEAPEST WAY TO CITY FROM HO CHI MINH CITY AIRPORT! 

Pay a VND 5000 (as July 2014) which is roughly USD 0.30 and the bus will get you to downtown. The bus will stop you at the bus station opposite Ben Thanh Market. From there, you can easily walk to DISTRICT 1 (Famous backpacker area) if you staying there.

To get to Bus 152, Simply cross the road when you exit the Airport and walk slightly to your right side, the bus might be at there waiting for you. If not, just sit for a while and wait for the bus.

2) Leaving for Airport.

Leaving to airport is simple as well. Go to the bus stop opposite Ben Thanh Market.
 However, there's 2 stops for BUS 152. Note that you need to go to the correct stop

A is spot where the bus drop you when coming from Airport

B is the stop where bus go to Airport!

**The Bus will stop at Domestic Airport first before he drop you at International Airport.

3) Currency, Currency and Currency!

Vietnam Dong(VND) is used in vuietnam but you can easily find money changer that accept notes from various countries especially  Japan, Malaysia, US, Australia, China, Taiwan, Canada, Singapore and UK.

For the currency rate (As July 2014)

1,000 VND = 0.16 MYR = 0.25USD

Most of the places i found in HCMC accept RM1 for 6000VND (rougly rm 0.17)

For Malaysian, I recommend you not to change so much of VND as the rate in Vietnam is so much BETTER!

Personally, i discovered 2 places to change your money at good rate:

A) Money Changer opposite Ben Thanh Market

The money changer here offer you the rate as:

 RM1 to 6500 VND (roughly RM 0.153).

Note that you are entitled for this rate when you change in exactly RM100, 200, 300, 400...etc

This place generally offer cheaper rate for other currencies as well.

**I forget the name of the money changer but look out for it, it was a small shop with a counter where you need to go in and check out the currency rate from a piece of paper!

B) Go to Sun Wah Tower for Maybank ATM (700meter from Ben Thanh Market!)

Address: Sunwah Tower,  phường Bến Nghé, Quận 1 Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

Sun Wah tower

Walk into the building and turn right, toward the end and you will find a Maybank ATM machine inside! 

The rate for maybank is RM 0.152 for VND 1000. 

This ATM  provide rate so much better than  any money changer in Malaysia SO make sure you activated your GLOBAL PLUS for your bank if you wish to withdraw Money from Maybank! Of coursebetter if you own a maybank acc.

Anyway, there's ATM EVERYWHERE that allow you to take money such as HSBC, Citibank and local banks so you needn't bring so much cash with you when travelling! :D