Bitexco Tower or Ben Thanh Market: Two Very Different Sides of Saigon
One is glass and steel 262 meters above the Saigon River, the other is a century-old covered market thick with the smell of dried shrimp and fresh coffee. Here is how to fit both into a single day.
Ho Chi Minh City does not hide its contradictions the way some cities do. Within ten minutes of each other sit a 68-story financial tower shaped like a lotus bud, its 49th-floor Saigon Skydeck offering a glass-walled view over the Saigon River, and Ben Thanh Market, a French colonial-era covered market that has been selling produce, textiles, and street food from the same corrugated roof since 1914. Most guidebooks treat these as separate stops on a checklist. They work far better as a single, deliberately contrasting afternoon.
Start at the top: the Bitexco Skydeck
The Saigon Skydeck occupies the 49th floor of the Bitexco Financial Tower and is the single best orientation point in the city. Tickets run around 200,000 VND (roughly $8) for adults, and the observation deck opens at 9:30am. Go as close to opening as you can manage — by early afternoon haze tends to soften the skyline, and by golden hour the queue for the elevator can stretch 20 minutes. From the deck you can trace the Saigon River as it bends past District 4, pick out the low colonial rooftops of District 1, and get a genuine sense of how flat and river-woven this city is, something that is impossible to feel from street level.
The tower also houses a helipad-adjacent café one floor below the main deck, which is a quieter (and cheaper) way to get a similar view if you are short on time — a coffee there costs about the same as a skydeck ticket and comes with nearly the same panorama, just without the full 360-degree walk.
During Tet (Lunar New Year) and major holidays, skydeck tickets can sell out by mid-morning. It is worth checking availability on GetYourGuide's Ho Chi Minh City page the night before if you are visiting in late January or February.
Then go underground, in spirit: Ben Thanh Market
From the Bitexco Tower it is a flat, roughly 15-minute walk south to Ben Thanh Market, and the shift in atmosphere is immediate. Where the skydeck is silent and air-conditioned, Ben Thanh is loud, warm, and dense — narrow aisles packed with fabric stalls, dried fruit vendors, souvenir stands, and a food court in the back corner that is one of the most reliable places in the city to try multiple Vietnamese dishes without committing to a full sit-down meal.
Bargaining is expected for clothing, souvenirs, and textiles inside Ben Thanh — vendors will typically start at two to three times the price they will actually accept, so counter-offering at roughly 40-50% of the asking price and working up from there is a reasonable approach. Food stalls, by contrast, tend to have fixed and fair prices; you are not expected to haggle over a bowl of phở.
Ben Thanh Market at a glance
Where to stay for easy access to both
Because both sights sit inside District 1, almost any hotel in the central business district puts you within a 20-minute walk of each. Streets immediately around Ben Thanh and along Nguyen Hue walking street tend to have the best density of well-reviewed mid-range hotels — searching by neighborhood rather than by "Ho Chi Minh City" broadly on Agoda's Ho Chi Minh City listings makes it easier to filter for that specific area.
| Base | Walk to Bitexco | Walk to Ben Thanh | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nguyen Hue walking street | 5–10 min | 10–15 min | Nightlife and river views |
| Around Ben Thanh Market | 15 min | 0–5 min | Early market shopping |
| Dong Khoi Street | 10 min | 15 min | Colonial architecture, upscale dining |
