Hotels near Independence Palace (Reunification Palace)

The Independence Palace, also called the Reunification Palace, served as the home and workplace of the president of South Vietnam. Architect Ngo Viet Thu designed the current building, completed in 1966 on the site of the earlier Norodom Palace. On 30 April 1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the front gates, ending the war. Two tanks now stand on the lawn, and the interior has been kept largely as it was that morning.

What survives is a detailed record of 1960s state architecture: banquet halls, the cabinet room, the presidential quarters and a rooftop helipad with the helicopter still parked on it. The basement holds the command bunker, radio room and telecommunications equipment used in the final years of the conflict. Adult tickets cost 65,000 VND (about 2.40 EUR), and the site opens from 8:00 to 15:30 with a midday break. An English audio guide is available at the entrance.

Pro Tip: Go straight down to the basement before touring the upper floors. Groups almost always work from the top down, so the bunker and map rooms stay empty for the first hour after the 8:00 opening. A combined ticket adding the exhibition on the palace's own history costs about 15,000 VND more.