First published July 2025 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle | Read time 25 minutes

Tom Divers is the founder and creator of Vietnam Coracle. He’s lived, travelled and worked in Vietnam since 2005. Born in London, he travelled from an early age, visiting over 40 countries (he first visited Vietnam in 1999). Now, whenever he has the opportunity to make a trip, he rarely looks beyond Vietnam’s borders and his trusty motorbike, Stavros. Read more about Tom on the About Page, Vietnam Times and ASE Podcast.

Apart from one or two exceptions, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is not particularly well-known for its museums. Indeed, it is Hanoi’s museums that are generally considered to be the best in Vietnam. However, once you start looking, Ho Chi Minh City does, in fact, host at least a dozen good, and sometimes unique, museums that are scattered across the city. Most of these museums cost barely more than a dollar to enter – some are free – and are housed in fascinating buildings that are often just as engaging as the exhibits they hold. The city’s museums focus on a range of themes, from war to women, medicine to memorabilia, history to geology, traditional clothing to military campaigns. Interestingly, the demographic of visitors to Ho Chi Minh City’s museums tends to be young. The average age of visitors (the vast majority of whom are Vietnamese, not foreign tourists) is probably around mid-20s. This gives the impression of a population that is keen to engage with, and learn about, their nation’s history and culture, and makes the museums in this guide feel relevant and alive. In my opinion, Ho Chi Minh City’s museums – much like the city’s fresh markets – have been neglected by travellers in the post-pandemic period. It is time to redress that.

Support My Site

Free | Independent | No Sponsored Content

“Hello, if you enjoy my website, please support it.
Thank you.” Tom

Donate

Patreon

[Back Top]

10 MUSEUMS, HO CHI MINH CITY

A Personal Selection of the Best of the City’s Museums

Below are 10 museums in Ho Chi Minh City. Obviously, there are many more museums in the city: this is just a selection of some of the museums I like the most. The museums are arranged in order of my personal preference. I’ve written a synopsis of each museum as well as visitor information, such as opening times, ticket prices and addresses. All museums are illustrated with several photos and they are all plotted on my map. Remember to pay attention to the opening times, as some museums close on Mondays or during lunchtime. Click a museum from the contents below for details and see Related Posts for similar guides.

Selected Resources What’s this?

CONTENTS:

Map

1. Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine

2. History Museum

3. Ho Chi Minh City Museum

4. Southern Women’s Museum

5. Fine Arts Museum

6. Áo Dài Museum

7. Ho Chi Minh Museum

8. War Remnants Museum

9. Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum

10. Geological Museum

Related Posts

⮟

If you enjoy this article, see Related Posts for similar stories and please support Vietnam Coracle with a donation or join our Patreon community or consider purchasing one of our Offline Guides & Maps from the shop. Thank you, Tom

MAP:

10 Museums | Ho Chi Minh City

[Back to Contents]

1. Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Y Học Cổ Truyền Việt Nam
• Address: 41 Hoàng Dư Khương, District 10 [MAP]
• Open: 8.30am-17.00pm daily
• Ticket: 180,000vnđ

This wonderful museum, located on a small street tucked away in a labyrinth of alleyways in an appealing local neighbourhood, is a real treat. Spread over 6 floors in what resembles, from the outside at least, a traditional Saigon townhouse, the museum’s exhibits focus on the history, development, implementation and associated equipment of traditional herbal remedies over the last two thousand years. It’s not just the subject matter of this museum that makes it unique, its layout, design, architecture and display are fascinating too. Featuring red-brick walls, an elegant wooden staircase, intricately cut wooden reliefs, intriguing antechambers, wooden apothecary cabinets, and a rooftop sculpture garden set among aromatic flora, the museum has, understandably, gained a reputation among Vietnamese youth as a place for social media photos, as well as an education in traditional medicinal practices, of course.

Each floor consists of just a few small rooms. A large percentage of exhibits focus on traditional medicine during the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802-1945), presumably because that is the most well-documented period. There are visual libraries depicting hundreds of plants, flowers, seeds, roots and fungi that are found in Vietnam and can be used to treat various ailments. Implements for the production and consumption of herbal medicine fill glass cabinets, from thimble-sized ceramics to large clay and bronze pots. Perhaps my favourite exhibit is the walk-in cellar of medicinal liquor, with dozens of varieties displayed in glass jars, including notes listing their ingredients – from roots to spices to fruits to reptiles. Traditional medicine goes back millennia in Vietnam and herbal remedies are still widely used today. An information video on the ground floor is worth watching before looking around the exhibits. There’s the opportunity for a herbal foot bath on the rooftop (70,000vnđ) and a free cup of herbal tea on the ground floor after your visit. The entrance fee for this museum is wildly high compared to all other museums in this guide, but it’s worth it.

[Back to Contents]

2. History Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Lịch Sử Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh
• Address: 2 Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, District 1 [MAP]
• Open: Tuesday-Sunday 8.00-11am & 13.00-16.30pm (closed Monday)
• Ticket: 30,000vnđ

Remarkably similar in both architectural style and exhibits to its sister museum in Hanoi, the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History is housed in an attractive Sino-French structure, reminiscent of a pagoda or colonial école, dating from 1929. The museum can be entered either from the west on Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, or from the east near the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. Take a moment to admire the elegant facade of the museum – with its buttressed, multi-layered, tiled roofs – before entering. Above the west entrance, there’s a colossal relief frieze depicting the great victory of Trần Hưng Đạo over the invading Mongol Empire, in 1285-1288. Even more dramatic, the east entrance leads straight into the main atrium, with tiled floors and a vaulted ceiling looming above three slim, worn, wooden sculptures of Buddha, dating from the 4^th-6^th centuries from the ancient Mekong Delta culture of Óc Eo. From the atrium, the exhibits are arranged chronologically, going clockwise around the museum. Starting from the prehistoric period to the stone age and bronze age, then independence from Chinese rule in the north, Óc Eo culture in the south, Cham culture in the central region, and the progression of Vietnamese imperial dynasties, ending with the last imperial line, the Nguyễn Dynasty, and a room on minority cultures and a display of ceramics recovered from shipwrecks off Vietnam’s coast. There’s also a collection of canons outside in the gardens, as well as a couple of elegant, shade-filled courtyards to rest.

Selected Resources What’s this?

Highlights for me include a gold Roman coin with the bust of the ‘philosopher emperor’ Marcus Aurelius (121-180CE), found in the Mekong Delta region, suggesting trade between Southeast Asia and the Roman Empire stretching back nearly 2,000 years; a beautiful display of royal áo dài clothing from the Nguyễn Dynasty; some robust and striking sculptures and reliefs from Cham sites; terracotta decorative motifs featuring dragons’ and phoenix’s heads; a collection of iconic Đồng Sơn period bronze drums and much more besides.

[Back to Contents]

3. Ho Chi Minh City Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh
• Address: 65 Lý Tự Trọng, District 1 [MAP]
• Open: 8.00am-17.00pm daily
• Ticket: 30,000vnđ

Focusing on the history of Sài Gòn (Ho Chi Minh City), this museum’s exhibits are overshadowed by the building they’re housed in. A palatial neoclassical structure from 1885, the building’s dreary coat of grey paint belies the grandeur of its interior, and indeed its historical use. Over almost a century and a half it has functioned as the residence of French, Japanese, British and Vietnamese political and military leaders. The exterior is striking and heavy, with surrounding tropical gardens dotted with large military hardware, including a UH-1 (‘Huey’) helicopter, an F-5 fighter jet and an M41 tank. Inside, the architectural features are a constant distraction from the exhibits: Art Nouveau doorframes and windows, wooden shutters, tiled floors – that often rattle loose beneath your feet – long, breezy corridors and a magnificent, sweeping, double central staircase. In the basement, several rooms are accessible to visitors which are part of an underground tunnel network commissioned by Ngô Đình Diệm, president of South Vietnam, in order to flee if under attack. Indeed, both Diệm and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu hid in these tunnels during a coup d’état in November 1963, before they were assassinated at Cha Tam Church.

The museum is spread over two enormous floors. The downstairs galleries focus on the history of the area that is now Ho Chi Minh City, charting its transformation from a sodden backwater to a modern metropolis. Highlights for me include, an endlessly fascinating map of Saigon from 1881 drawn by Marine Captain Favre, several dozen captivating black-and-white aerial photographs of Saigon from the first half of the twentieth century, some interesting statistical charts, such as the city’s population growth from the 17^th century to the present day, and weather charts showing average monthly temperature and rainfall, and striking costumes and masks from classical theatre performances of the Nguyễn Dynasty. The upstairs galleries focus on the revolutionary period, culminating with the liberation of Saigon on April 30^th 1975. Unfortunately, these exhibits are far less engaging than similar ones in other of the city’s museums. The Highlands Coffee next door is actually housed in part of the museum building, with seating along one of its open-sided colonnades. Great for a pick-me-up after a long, hot visit to the museum.

Selected Resources What’s this?

[Back to Contents]

4. Southern Women’s Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Phụ Nữ Nam Bộ
• Address: 202 Võ Thị Sáu, District 3 [MAP]
• Open: 7.30-11.30am & 13.30-17.00pm daily
• Ticket: free

Appropriately located on a street named after perhaps Vietnam’s most famous heroine, Võ Thị Sáu, the Southern Women’s Museum is spread over two contrasting buildings. The first is an airy French colonial villa, painted pale yellow, with tiled floors, shuttered windows, a spiral stairwell, high-ceilinged rooms and more than a touch of Indochine romance about it. The second, located directly behind the colonial villa, is an angular, heavy, concrete fortress, somewhat reminiscent of Hồ Chí Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi. The exhibits in the villa are difficult to get excited about, focusing on the establishment of the museum, formerly known as the Traditional House of Southern Women, and the extension, in 1985, to the new Southern Women’s Museum, housed in the big building behind. But the villa itself is rather glorious and well worth wandering around. The main museum is spread across two floors of the new structure which, despite its severe and soviet appearance, is highly functional and the collection is well-curated. The first floor focuses on traditional forms of female dress in southern Vietnam, specifically the áo dài, of which there are numerous examples. There’s also a room dedicated to the dress of several minority groups in the southern region, including the Chăm. Other exhibits are small, intimate, everyday possessions, such as combs, jewelry, vanity mirrors, perfume bottles and cake moulds. The second floor features a gallery of black-and-white photographs telling the story of women’s role in the revolutionary years of the 20^th century, including the likes of Võ Thị Sáu, and similarly heroic, but often tragic, stories.

[Back to Contents]

5. Fine Arts Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Mỹ Thuật Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh
• Address: 97A Phó Đức Chính, District 1 [MAP]
• Open: 8.00am-17.00pm daily
• Ticket: 30,000vnđ

Housed in a terrific French colonial villa dating from 1929, the city’s Fine Arts Museum is spread over three storeys in three separate buildings. The main structure (Building 1) focuses on Vietnamese modern art from the early 20^th century to the post-1975 period. The artworks are arranged chronologically, going forward in time from the top floor to the bottom floor. Personally, I found the early modern art (the top floor) to be the most appealing. Some standout works include a portrait of a woman in charcoal, a black-and-white print of women working in the fields resembling a classical frieze, a banyan tree on silk canvas and an oil painting of men carrying military supplies on their backs in the Mekong Delta. I found the later modern work a bit cold and difficult to engage with. The floors are accessed via an elegant staircase winding around the shaft of an antique elevator. The landing on each floor features a sculpture gallery, with exhibits arranged on the original tiled floor, lit by sunlight streaming in through beautiful Art Nouveau stained-glass windows and doorframes. The main building is a real treat – be sure to walk around it from the outside, admiring its almost Gaudi-esque balconies, balustrades and windows, and enter the courtyard from the back. Building 2 sometimes has special exhibitions, while Building 3 is a handsome structure with an impressive display of ancient sculpture from across Vietnam, including Hindu gods from the Funan and Óc Eo cultures of the Mekong Delta, and statues of Buddha from the Kingdom of Champa in central and southern Vietnam.

Selected Resources What’s this?

[Back to Contents]

6. Áo Dài Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Áo Dài
• Address: 206/19/30 Long Thuận, Thủ Đức [MAP]
• Open: 8.30am-17.30pm daily
• Ticket: 50,000vnđ

Way out east of central Ho Chi Minh City, the Áo Dài Museum is located in a semi-rural district, where palms grow alongside muddy tributaries that run between clusters of urban housing. Getting here takes at least half an hour by taxi from downtown, so it’s best to treat a visit to the Áo Dài Museum as a chance to take a brief break from the busy city streets and relax in the far more tranquil surrounds of the museum, which includes ample parkland, ponds, trees and several attractive traditional timbre structures. In short, the museum grounds are a nice place to stroll around, as well as browsing the exhibits on display.

Áo dài is, of course, the famously elegant traditional Vietnamese dress, widely known through romantic images of secondary school girls wearing white áo dài uniforms, with their long, flowing tails billowing behind them in the breeze. This is an iconic, postcard image of Vietnam. Indeed, the áo dài (literally ‘long dress’), in some form or another, has been worn in Vietnam for centuries and remains popular today, especially for special occasions and uniforms (despite the fact that many women I talk to don’t actually find them comfortable to wear). The museum map helps visitors find their way around the large complex, but the most relevant building is block 3: the Áo Dài History Exhibition. Housed in a long structure, the ugly exterior concrete shell belies the attractive, low-lit interior, with wooden beams supporting a tiled roof. Dozens of áo dài are on display, each collection representing a different period or fashion style. Information boards are in English and Vietnamese. Dotted around the gardens, several other buildings surround a central lake, including a traditional house, temple, restaurant, theatre and even a room where visitors can try on a variety of áo dài. Note that the museum is quite isolated: there are no cafes, eateries or shops within the immediate vicinity.

[Back to Contents]

Selected Resources What’s this?

7. Ho Chi Minh Museum:

• Name: Bến Nhà Rồng Bảo Tàng Hồ Chí Minh
• Address: 1 Nguyễn Tất Thành, District 4 [MAP]
• Open: 7.30-11.30am & 13.30-17.00pm daily
• Ticket: 10,000vnđ

Situated on Nguyễn Tất Thành street – one of several aliases by which Hồ Chí Minh (also an alias) was known by – this museum occupies the handsome, pink-painted French colonial edifice at the confluence of the Saigon River and the Bến Nghé Channel, constructed in 1862 as the city port’s customs house. In June, 1911, a 21-year-old Hồ Chí Minh set sail from this very building, onboard the Amiral de Latouche-Tréville, working as an assistant to the ship’s cook. He travelled the world for three decades, not returning to his native Vietnam until 1941, when he re-entered via the remote northern border, at Pác Bó Cave. It’s worth strolling around the outside of the building and its gardens which look across the river to the city’s increasingly impressive skyline. A colossal gold statue of a young Hồ Chí Minh (named Nguyễn Tất Thành) presides over the gardens, looking towards the high-rises of his namesake’s city. Inside, the first floor consists of several rooms that function more as shrines than exhibitions. Statues and busts of uncle Ho at various stages of his life adorn walls, altars and plinths. There are also photographs and paintings of Ho and other pivotal figures from the revolution, above which hang famous Ho quotes. A map charts Ho’s extensive voyages after leaving this building in 1911 – it is quite astonishing how widely he travelled. Another exhibit makes the point that, before he left, Ho travelled the length of Vietnam, as did members of his close family, and thus had an attachment to, and experience of, the entire nation, not just his quê hương – ‘hometown’. Upstairs are five rooms, each focusing on a specific period of Ho’s life, from his birth in 1890 to his death in 1969. The majority of exhibits are black-and-white photographs; some are engaging, others are not. Most of the images of Ho portray an intelligent, determined, sophisticated but down-to-earth man, who appears to have been just as comfortable in a conference room with foreign diplomats and world leaders as he was in a rice field with local farmers and children.

[Back to Contents]

8. War Remnants Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Chứng Tích Chiến Tranh
• Address: 28 Võ Văn Tần, District 3 [MAP]
• Open: 7.30am-17.30pm daily
• Ticket: 40,000vnđ

The first time I ever visited this museum was in the 1990s, when it was still known by its former name, Museum of Chinese & American War Crimes. Regardless of its more ambiguous title today, the contents of the War Remnants Museum remain shocking and unflinching. One of the most popular attractions in Vietnam, the museum receives around a million visitors each year. The display of US military hardware outside the main building – including a CH-47 chinook helicopter, howitzer artillery guns, an M48 tank and a M-5A fighter jet – is popular for photographs. Here, the war is a filmset, littered with impressive machinery, much of which is recognizable from dozens of famous Vietnam War movies. The general mood among visitors seems to be one of excitement and curiosity. This feeling continues as one enters the ground floor, flanked by tourist trinket souvenir shops and rooms displaying photographs, events and articles documenting global opposition to American military involvement in Vietnam. There are hundreds of people milling about the galleries – of all ages and nationalities – and there’s an air of conviviality. But the horror lies on the 1^st and 2^nd floors.

Rooms arranged around a central atrium focus on the atrocities of the ‘American War’ during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the lingering impact post-war, such as the awful effects of Agent Orange and UXO (unexploded ordnance) that continue to destroy lives even today. Many of the exhibits are photographs of graphic scenes of violence and death. Over the last four decades, I have visited this museum on several occasions. But, in truth, once was enough. On this occasion, I could not stand to be in any of the galleries for more than 30 seconds before being brought to tears, and I certainly could not bring myself to hold my camera up in front of images of a dozen murdered school girls discarded in a muddy gutter by the roadside, or an American soldier holding up the melted carcass of a child killed by napalm, looking at it as if it were a crushed can of Budweiser and wondering how to dispose of it. Therefore, the photos below are limited to less distressing exhibits.

Selected Resources What’s this?

For me, the value of a museum like this is in bringing home the reality of war to those of us that have so far been lucky enough not to experience it firsthand, and thereby making sure that we prevent it ever happening again. Although the museum literature – the captions, the signage, the leaflets – is obviously quite heavy on the propaganda, I don’t think of it in those terms: I just see it as a museum of the horrors of war, regardless of who the perpetrators are or what their motives might be. As Bảo Ninh said, “In war, no one wins or loses. There is only destruction.” Judging by the reaction and mood of the majority of foreign visitors at the museum, I wonder if perhaps the meaning and function of this museum is being lost. While several visitors were visibly moved and distressed by what they saw in the galleries – needing to sit down on the stairs and weep – it seemed to me that most were moving through the rooms without being emotionally affected, perhaps seeing the images in the same way that they see the Vietnam War movies; knowing that the scenes are really filmsets and that the victims are really actors. This is an important museum and a valuable one, but it can be – and it probably should be – deeply disturbing. Visitors should come prepared for this, or not come at all. I do not intend to visit again.

[Back to Contents]

9. Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Chiến Dịch Hồ Chí Minh
• Address: 2 Lê Duẩn, District 1 [MAP]
• Open: Monday-Friday 7.30-11am & 13.30-16.30pm (closed Saturday & Sunday)
• Ticket: 10,000vnđ

Only established in 2020, this museum – housed in a former military school – focuses on the final campaign to defeat (or ‘liberate’) Sài Gòn during the Spring General Offensive of 1975, which eventually led to the fall of Sài Gòn on 30^th April, effectively ending the war. The museum is most notable for its impressive – and largely overlooked – display of military hardware in the gardens surrounding the main building and, inside, for a dozen or so mesmerizing black-and-white photos from the final years of the war. The military materiel in the gardens includes a Soviet T-54 tank, an American F-5 fighter jet, a surface-to-air missile, field artillery guns and a collection of handsome-looking military trucks, among other large pieces of equipment. Inside, going from left to right on the ground floor and from right to left on the first floor, is a chronological display of the final campaign to end the war, starting from the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, leading to the steady fall of major cities from the Central Highlands to the south-central coast, the Sài Gòn river plain and delta and, finally, the city itself. Told through images, artifacts and models of varying quality and interest, the interior of the museum is relatively sparse. However, some of the faded, worn photographs of the campaign – almost smudged, like a charcoal drawing or a William Turner painting in monochrome – are extraordinary, both for their subject matter and, in some cases, their composition, which sometimes has the disconcerting effect of adding beauty to an image that should otherwise evoke horror. Also of interest are a set of patriotic, stained-glass windows on the first floor of the building, which are most impressive in the afternoon when the warm light shines through them.

[Back to Contents]

Selected Resources What’s this?

10. Geological Museum:

• Name: Bảo Tàng Địa Chất Việt Nam
• Address: 2 Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, District 1 [MAP]
• Open: Monday-Friday 8.00-11.30am & 13.00-16.30pm (closed Saturday & Sunday)
• Ticket: free

A short stroll south of both the History Museum and the Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum, the Geological Museum of Vietnam is housed is an interesting, grey concrete, four-storey modernist building of the kind that used to be ubiquitous in the city, but, over the last decade, has started to disappear. Indeed, a visit here is more for exploring the building than for the contents of its museum. Entrance is free, but you must sign your name and nationality in a visitors’ book. Stepping into the museum is like stepping back in time by several decades. Across the threshold of this concrete block, one enters a Saigon that could be any decade from the 1960s to the early 2000s. There is a lingering sense of the past and an undeniable nostalgia inside this modernist concrete shell. Inside, the tiled floors add an elegance that the heavy, grey exterior doesn’t even hint at. The angular stairwell leads to landings that are open to the breeze, which swirls along the full-length balconies on each floor. Even the wooden cabinets which hold the exhibits seem to belong to a bygone era. Wandering the building is very pleasant, even if the exhibits themselves may not be quite as engaging. On the surface, each room appears to be the same: rows of cabinets displaying small-to-medium-sized rocks. On closer inspection, however, there are things to grab your interest: bottled mineral water from different regions of Vietnam; layers of bauxite for aluminium production from the Central Highlands; cobalt, coal, amethyst, different kinds of oils and mineral fuels in jars, and, best of all, a 12-foot-high map of Vietnam’s mineral deposits that looks as old as the building itself. There’s also a precious stones shop attached to the museum. All in all, it’s a fun little 30-minute visit.

For more useful resources like this, see Related Posts below. And if you enjoyed this article, please support Vietnam Coracle or consider purchasing one of my Offline Guides & Maps from the shop. Thank you, Tom

Support My Site

Free | Independent | No Sponsored Content

“Hello, if you enjoy my website, please support it.
Thank you.” Tom

Donate

Patreon

[Back to Top]

*Disclosure: I never receive payment for anything I write: my content is always free and independent. I’ve written this guide because I want to: I like these museums and I want my readers to know about them. For more details, see my Disclosure & Disclaimer statements and my About Page

[Back to Contents]

RELATED POSTS: