Ho Chi Minh City v Hanoi

Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, is the Shanghai of Vietnam, where even the north Vietnamese come for a good time. It is more westernised than the rest of the country, with more malls and more nightlife – and, like Shanghai, it has a river port at its heart. One peaceful means of exploration is to take the Waterbus upriver, as it peels through the city’s layers out to traditional riverside settlements.

Saigon has two contrasting “walking streets”: Nguyen Hue, in front of the French-designed city hall, where local families gather after dark; and Bui Vien, a backpacker destination throbbing with bars and laser lights.

For those interested in recent history, there are two key destinations: the War Remnants Museum, which contains exhibits relating to the First Indochina and Vietnam wars, and the brutalist Reunification Palace, built in the 1960s as the headquarters of the South Vietnamese government and filled with formal meeting rooms, lavish with marble. The Vietnam War finally ended here when north Vietnamese tanks came crashing through the gates.

By contrast, Hanoi is more traditional and dignified, filled with colonial buildings from Vietnam’s Frenchdominated past. Landmarks include President Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, where the leader’s body lies in state, but most visitors avoid the surrounding government offices and Presidential Palace, preferring the crammed and intricate alleys of the old city, west and north of Hoan Kiem lake.

Here there are cultural experiences such as the water puppet theatre, where folk stories are played out by puppets emerging from the water. Elegant coffeehouses on the lake shore are mid-morning meeting places for coiffured Vietnamese ladies, and when darkness falls the smart set assembles in cocktail bars on high balconies at the likes of the Hotel Sinfonia del Rey.