Ben Thanh Market is the nearest tourists attraction from the hotel we stayed. It is actually walking distance, but not too near either if by foot. After our lunch at the alley, Alvin decided that we should go to Ben Thanh Market have a look!
There was no way one is going to leave out Ben Thanh Market, if he or she is travelling to Saigon! It is a must visit tourists attraction.
Even as touristy as it may be, it’s a buzzing market, full of history, shopping stalls galore, and being located in the heart of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, it is probably the most important central landmark of the city.
You will find just about everything ever created or produced in Vietnam somewhere within the market lanes of Ben Thanh.
When we were there, we saw a frenzy of both foreign tourists from around the world, as well as Vietnamese shoppers.
The front part are mostly made up of clothing, accessories and souvenirs stalls.
We were quite disappointed with the clothing and prices shown compared with the designs and styles of the dress or clothing.
We did buy most of the souvenirs that would like to bring back to friends here. Mostly are for Alvin’s colleagues and Annabelle’s friends.
We walked further in and started spotting all the dried goods, food and coffee/tea stalls.
We were tempted to purchase some of the coffee or tea back for souvenirs, but eventually we did not buy it as we have do our researches on line on the prices here!
Most of these goods are sold per weight basis. If you just want to get a few grams..maybe it might be cheaper to get it from the supermarket. It’s all about bulk purchases here!
Then, we came to the local food stalls within Ben Thanh Market ranging from pho to broken rice, Bahn Mi and other Vietnamese Cuisine.
We saw that there were all kinds of snails and shells that sold in the food stalls, and the Bo La Lot as well!
We were so tempted to eat the snails here, by looking at the various types of cooking they have in, but we did not.
We sat down in front of the counter in one of the stalls, Alvin ordered some Bo La Lot and few Gỏi cuốn – summer rolls.
The rolls were stuffed with a good quantity of lettuce, basil, shrimp, and what I really loved was all of the chives, poking out from the top of the roll, offering a slight mellow onion flavour.
Well… to be frank, I am not a huge fan of the summer rolls, but it does taste good, especially dip with the hoisin sauce or the fish sauce.
This is one of the main markets in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, but we did not really care for it too much – it was too touristy for us, but still a good place to walk around.
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