Ho Chi Minh City– tag –

Ho Chi Minh City’s long-established banh cuon shop “Thai Ho 127” makes the 2026 Michelin Bib Gourmand. We sum up the three-generation, 65-year-old taste and how travelers can eat and get there in the morning.

Ezekiel Tan, chef of a popular Singapore restaurant themed on medicinal cuisine, held a one-night-only wellness dinner at Unu, a restaurant inside a Saigon art hotel. We unpack this experience where two cities' food cultures meet from a Japanese traveler's perspective.

Customers are flocking to the eateries featured in Thanh Nien's series "In Search of Hometown Eateries." Sold out by 9:30 a.m., with some closing early. We explain a practical guide to a regional food crawl in Ho Chi Minh City, with shop names, addresses, prices, and opening hours.

Ho Chi Minh City's 134 free bus routes require no verification from July to September, but identity verification via VNeID or an ID card becomes necessary from October. We explain, from a practical standpoint, how residents and travelers can prepare so the second phase causes no trouble.

Under Vietnam's new e-commerce law taking effect July 1, 2026, sellers must verify their identity via VNeID. Anonymous selling is banned. We lay out, together with the tax-withholding mechanism, the practical steps that residents and Japanese-affiliated individual and small-scale sellers should take now.

From June 1, 2026, Vietnam's immigration procedures are consolidated through corporate VNeID. Counter and offline reception for visa extensions, work visas, and residence-card applications have stopped. We summarize the steps residents and local subsidiaries should check right away.

Vietnam Airlines is moving about 12% of its international flights from central Ho Chi Minh City to the new Long Thanh Airport 40 km to the east. Trial operations in September 2026, with commercial operations within the year. We summarize the changes in departure and arrival airports and access that Japanese travelers should keep in mind.

Ho Chi Minh City makes 134 of 135 lines fare-free from July 1 to December 31. With new air-conditioned buses and card payment also introduced, the route buses travelers tended to avoid become a realistic way to get around.

Ho Chi Minh City’s sixth double-decker sightseeing bus, “DL06,” opens on July 4. We’ve laid out the roughly 27-km, 110-minute route, operating hours and frequency, the boarding point, and how it differs from the existing five routes, for Japanese travelers.

CCCP, a Soviet and Eastern European restaurant in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. We introduce the home cooking made by an owner who studied in Russia and his Ukrainian mother-in-law, along with the nostalgic red-and-white checkered interior, from a traveler’s point of view.