Museums

Ho Chi Minh Museum

This is one of my favorite museums in Saigon. I love it for the building it is located in and the peacefulness of the garden.

Ho Chi Minh Museum, SaigonThe Ho Chi Minh Museum is situated in a lovely old building nicknamed the ‘Dragon House.'

The Dragon House is an old customs house dating back to 1863, and is located on the water front at 1 Nguyen Tat Thanh, about a five to ten minute walk across the Ben Nghi Channel from where the Vung Tau ferries leave from on Ton Duc Thang Street.

This location gives the museum a good view up and down the Saigon River.

The link between the building and Ho Chi Minh itself is pretty tenuous.

The link being that, as a youthful twenty-one year-old, this building is where Ho Chi Minh left Vietnam from in 1911 after signing on as a stoker and galley boy on the French freighter the ‘Admiral Latouche-Treville'.

The museum contains a number of his personal affects, including clothes, sandals, radio and so on.

However, be warned, that the explanatory signs for all the exhibits are in Vietnamese. So don't go to the museum expecting to learn a lot.

However it is still an interesting and insightful place to visit and you can still work out the basic outline of Ho Chi Minh's life from the pictures.

For example, you can work out that his travels to countries such as France, England, Soviet Union and China were important in his political and personal development.

And that he was a man on many names. Born Nguyen Sinh Cung, Ho Chi Minh was also known as Nguyen Tat Thanh, Nguyen Van Ba and Nguyen Ai Quoc amongst many other names at various times throughout his life.

1 Nguyen Tat Thanh, Dist 4
Tel: 840 0647
Times: 7.30 - 11.30 & 1.30 - 5pm