(1,724 km from Hanoi) Located in the North of Vietnam’s East Sea, 165 km east from Formerly known as Saigon, today’s Ho Chi Minh City is the bustling and vibrating economic center of the South. Over the past few centuries, Saigon was called the “Pearl of the Far East” and was an important trading center for the Chinese, Japanese and Western Merchants who traveled the Saigon River.