Ho Chi Minh Nightlife

Saigon's status as the nightlife capital of Vietnam is undisputed. While a pesky curfew hampers denizens of Hanoi from tearing the capital up too much, bars and clubs in the southern hub throb with energy into the wee small hours of the morning. From sophisticated wine bars and dressy cocktail lounges to hole in the wall dives and bawdy venues targeted squarely at the western male, there's no lack of options in this party town. Most, if not all, the decent bars are in District 1 and District 3, but there's also a growing selection of more upmarket joints in the expat 'ghetto' of District 2, or An Phu as it is known to pretty much everyone. The bars in District 1 can be split into two distinct areas. The downtown area around Dong Khoi, Pasteur and Le Than Ton offer a fairly confusing mixture of seedy girl bars, civilized girl bars and pretty much everything else including Apocalypse Now, probably the city's most famous (but far from its best) nightclub. For unreconstructed night owls, however, the place to head is Pham Ngu Lao. The backpacker area is overloaded with bars, both in its narrow alleyways and on its main drags, De Tham and Bui Vien. There's not much of the way in refinement in this part of town but drinks are generally cheap, the people watching is often fascinating and the place throbs with the kind of all-night verve that you won't find anywhere else in the country.

More Top Lists

Popular Places