Walk Sài Gòn

The Reunification Palace is the building whose gates a tank crashed through on the morning of 30 April 1975 — for decades before that it was Sài Gòn's Presidential Palace, and it still sits behind its gardens looking like a piece of mid-century political theatre frozen in place. That's the first stop, and it sets the register for the rest of the afternoon: a city that keeps its layered history close to the surface rather than tidying it away.

From there the private car threads between eras. Bến Thành Market's covered halls have anchored the city centre for over a century, its stalls doing exactly what they've always done. Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica and the Central Post Office next door belong to the same colonial decade — French red brick against tropical light, the post office still processing real mail under its cast-iron roof. Đồng Khởi Street, once the boulevard where colonial Sài Gòn came to be seen, is lined with boutiques now instead of colonial cafés, but the bones of the street haven't moved.

The War Remnants Museum closes the loop, unflinching about the conflict that shaped everything else on the itinerary. It's a lot to cover in half a day, which is exactly why it's done by private car — nobody's waiting on traffic or tired feet, just following the throughline from one register of the city's history to the next.