6 Best Sights in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

This huge park, a block behind the Reunification Palace, has a little something for everyone: walking paths for strolling or jogging; tall trees for shade; open areas where exercise classes are held in the mornings and evenings; a miniature Cham tower; a replica Hung King Temple; and an extensive children's playground. There's also a coffee stand, known as the bird café, at the Cach Mang Thang Tam entrance, and every morning bird fanciers bring their feathered friends here for singing practice. Do pull up a plastic chair and enjoy the ruckus and the theater of finicky owners trying to position their birds in order to generate the loudest birdsong. The birds are usually taken home by 9 am—by motorbike, which is a spectacle in itself. Leading up to Tet, the lunar new year, a spring festival is held in the park, with live entertainment and food and handicrafts stalls.

A large government-owned tourist park, Van Thanh is a lovely escape from Ho Chi Minh City's urban chaos, with its artificial lake, restaurants, swimming pool, and small children's playground. The food isn't brilliant but dining in a little hut over the lake is fun, and the grounds and buildings are picturesque "ancient Vietnam" style. Entry to the pool, which gets very crowded on weekends, is 70,000d.

Next door to Dam Sen Water Park, this attraction has an amusement park as well as its cultural aspects, which makes it a good choice for a family outing. You can enjoy traditional Vietnamese handicrafts, games, and folk song performances and then view a range of cultural reproductions, which include an ancient Roman square and a Japanese teahouse and peach blossom garden. If the kids get restless, head for the roller coaster, bumper cars, Ferris wheel, and other rides. Tamer activities include swan boats to pedal, an extensive aquarium, animal enclosures, a bowling alley, and a movie theater. There are food and drink outlets throughout the park.

Trying to visit both the cultural and the water park in one day is not recommended.

For a rollicking day out for kids of all ages, this park has a variety of slides and pools (one with a wave machine), a zipline, and a lazy river ride. Compared to water parks in more developed countries, Dam Sen is a little rough around the edges, but that doesn't prevent it from being an exhilarating day out. Children have to be taller than 4 feet 6 inches to go on the larger slides, but there's a range of medium slides for smaller kids and a toddler play area.

On weekdays there are usually no lines for the rides.

Lockers are available (15,000d) and you're given a small waterproof tube to hold your money, valuables, and the locker key. There are also several food kiosks within the park. It can take up to an hour to get here from District 1 when traffic is heavy, or about 40 minutes in light traffic.

Believed to be the world's only Buddhist-themed amusement park, Suoi Tien (the name means Fairy Stream) is certainly one of the quirkiest. On the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, about 20 km (12 miles) from District 1 and behind a giant pair of tusks, it's a vast, sometimes downright odd, complex that contains an amazing diversity of attractions, from waterslides, crocodiles, and dolphins—thankfully, not all in the same place—to graphic depictions of hell, though there are not many signs in English to explain the more bizarre exhibits. There's also an ice palace, 4-D movie theater, fun fair rides for smaller kids, a go-kart circuit, and quad biking. Allocate a whole day to exploring the complex, and arrive early to get the land-based activities done before things heat up too much, then cool down in the water park, with its range of slides and pools to suit all ages. Food and drink kiosks can be found throughout the park.

The small zoo is depressing and best avoided.

Doing the water park and then exploring the theme park is going to be a huge day out, so it's probably better to choose one or the other for a day trip.