Hotels near Cho Lon and Binh Tay Market

Cho Lon is the Chinese quarter of Ho Chi Minh City, spread across Districts 5 and 6, and it has been a distinct settlement since the late eighteenth century when Hoa merchants relocated here from Bien Hoa. Binh Tay Market anchors it. The building went up in 1928, funded by the businessman Quach Dam, and reopened in 2018 after a four-year restoration that returned the yellow facade and central courtyard to their original condition.

Trade here is mostly wholesale, so goods sit stacked in bulk and the buyers are shopkeepers rather than tourists. Within a fifteen-minute walk you also have Thien Hau Temple on Nguyen Trai Street, Quan Am Pagoda, and the herbal medicine street along Hai Thuong Lan Ong. Entry to the market and the temples costs nothing. Spiral incense coils hang from the temple ceilings and burn for weeks at a time.

Pro Tip: Start at Binh Tay Market at 7:00 while the wholesale trade is still running, then walk east along Hai Thuong Lan Ong Street to Thien Hau Temple. Time it for the first or fifteenth day of the lunar month if your dates allow - the temples fill with families making offerings and the whole quarter smells of sandalwood.