First time to VietNam, and obviously, Ho Chi Minh City.
The airport is modern, clean, and spacious. The custom was courteous and speedy. When we entered the city, seas of motorcycles swallowed the car that I was in. Whenever the car stopped, motorcycles or scooters will surround it and fill spaces between cars like water poured into a porous object. I thought of China’s seas of bicycles just a few years ago. Beijing has basically outlawed motorcycles and replaced bicycles, rapidly, with electrical bicycles.
This largest city of VietNam of about 6.5 millions people is hot and humid. With snowy and frigid (-4C or 25F) Beijing vivid on my skin, I felt strange in T-shirt and shorts walking out of the hotel. Beijing quickly melted away in a light sweat.
The Central Postal Office has an impressive interior sporting the painting of Mr. Ho Chi Minh himself, Chairman Mao style. Next to the postoffice is the Notre Dame Cathedral: a traditional Catholic church with two high towers. It is an active church with all the standard functions. Traffic-wise, the church is an island surrounding by roads all around it. I need to negotiate waves of motorcycles to cross the street. I wonder how does it handle the Sunday worshipers?
The Ben Thanh market occupies pretty much an entire city block. It is covered, packed, and relies only on natural air flow to cool the interior. This market serves both local and tourists. There are live seafood, fresh meats, produces, and everything a large supermarket will stock. In addition, there are booths packed to the density of allowing only a single person to squeeze through. Shoes and sandals can fill the entire booth. Sun glasses appears to be a very popular item. I bought one for 100k VietNam Dongs. The exchange rate is roughly 16,000 VND to one dollar. You must be good at arithmetic to live in VietNam.
More pictures on 
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Can’t really visit VietNam without having a bowl of Phõ. Right? I am glad to report the VietNamese version tastes exactly the same as California, with just slightly different condiments. Other VietNamese foods I sampled kind of sweet. Yet I saw no obese people anywhere. Actually, no one was even mildly over-weigh. You can tell foreigners (Asian descent like myself) mostly instantaneously by their sizes.
Cannot really recommend Sheraton. For $260 a night (including Internet and breakfast), I expect royal treatments and got normal hoteling. Then again, I have paid much more for much less hotel in India. Supply and demand have funny way to make a consumer feel gouged all the time.
VietNam, sampled over a few days at a single city, seems like a thriving country with eyes fixed on the fast growth pattern of China and India. The formula seems simple: open relentlessly, don’t be too democratic too fast, focus on infra-structure and education, leap-frog on IT structure, teach people English. I have known many VietNamese. They are all smart, hardworking, and patient to harvest later. I came to country and see similar characteristics. I believe this country is taking off. Investors, take heed.