Ben Thanh Market

This guide to Ben Thanh Market traces how a mosquito-ridden swamp on Saigon's edge, home to the city's poorest families under French rule, became the site colonial planners chose for a grand central market. It follows the decades of stalled debate and a fire that destroyed an earlier attempt before construction finally began here in 1912, and the three days of lion dances and fireworks that opened it in 1914. Look up at the clock tower above the entrance as you listen for the one detail from that opening week that never stopped working.