Ho Chi Minh City
Formerly Saigon, Ho Chi Minh has the cuisine, cafes, sights, and nightlife that make Southeast Asia so intense. Loads of shops have cheap Pho. Streets vendors have the best Bahn Mi, Vietnamese sandwiches. Sit in a French-style cafe and watch thousands of scooters and bicycles whiz by while having some of the best coffee in the world, including unique versions where coffee beans are extracted from the feces of squirrels or cats. The city has museums and remnants of the Vietnam War, quaint parks where locals play what looks like combination of hacky sack and tennis. Ho Chi Minh has giant markets where you can find hand-made silk scarves. At night, the party goes into the morning with locals and foreigners mixing in clubs. (One of the most popular clubs is called Apocalypse Now.) If you want to venture outside of the city, the Cu Chi Tunnels let you see what it was like for Vietnamese--and American--soldiers to crawl through them during the war.
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