The short answer
The Saigon Central Post Office at 2 Công xã Paris, Sài Gòn Ward (formerly District 1), is free to walk into and is still a working post office, so you can post a card home from the counter. Notre-Dame Cathedral, across the square, is closed to tourists while its restoration continues, and nobody has set a reopening date. See it from the outside, or go in for Mass: the English Mass is on Sunday at 09:30.
Book Street, Đường sách Nguyễn Văn Bình, is the short pedestrian street of bookshops and cafés beside the two. Most guides have not caught up with 2026. Two new gold-plated crosses went up on the cathedral’s spires on 19 March, the priest leading the restoration has said the old 2027 finish cannot be met, and Vietnam Post does not publish opening hours for the post office, which is why every guide gives different ones. Everything below was checked on 29 October 2026 against the parish’s own website, Vietnam Post, the archdiocese and the Vietnamese press.
| Checked 29 October 2026 | Central Post Office | Notre-Dame Cathedral | Book Street |
|---|---|---|---|
| Address | 2 Công xã Paris, Sài Gòn Ward | 1 Công xã Paris, Sài Gòn Ward | Nguyễn Văn Bình, Sài Gòn Ward |
| Can you go in? | Yes | For Mass only. Closed to tourists during the restoration | Yes, it is a pedestrian street |
| Hours | None published. Every source we found has it open from 08:00 to 17:00 | Outside: any time. Mass daily at 05:30 and 17:30, six on Sunday | None published. Quiet after 18:00, except on its monthly festival nights |
| Cost | Free. You pay only for stamps, cards and souvenirs | Free | Free |
| Phone | 028 3827 1580 (Vietnam Post’s listing) | Parish office (+84) 823 721 439 | None |
Saigon Central Post Office: opening hours, entry and what to see
You can walk straight in. There is no ticket for the post office, and Vietnam Post still runs it as a working office, with counters for post, parcels and money transfers alongside the sightseers. In August 2026 Vietnam Post said it welcomes thousands of visitors a day.
Saigon Central Post Office opening hours
Vietnam Post does not publish opening hours for this office, and its own branch finder has no hours for it. Press reports disagree: Tuổi Trẻ’s Mực Tím, writing about the Tem Booth in October 2025, gave the post office’s hours as 07:00 to 18:00, VnExpress International gave 07:00 to 19:00 in 2024, and some travel sites say 08:00 to 17:00. The guides that list days all have it open seven days a week. Every source we found has it open between 08:00 and 17:00, so plan to be inside in those hours and do not leave it to the end of the day. To check before you go, Vietnam Post lists the office’s number as 028 3827 1580.
Posting a card home
Buy a postcard in the hall and get the stamp at the counter, where the price depends on where it is going. We could not find a current official price for international postage (the newest Vietnam Post tariff we found dates from 2018 and only sets ceilings), so we do not quote one here.
The Tem Booth
On 30 September 2025 Vietnam Post opened the Tem Booth, a photobooth on the right of the main hall, built from one of the old telephone booths and painted yellow. It prints your photo as a personal stamp or a postcard, and Vietnam Post says you can post the card through the normal mail with a real stamp alongside. When it opened, two prints cost 100,000₫ (small) or 130,000₫ (large). We have found no 2026 report on it or its price.
What to look at inside
- The roof. A steel-framed vaulted roof with windows high in the walls lights the main hall. Look up before anything else.
- The two painted maps, one on each side just inside the entrance. One is titled “Saigon et ses environs 1892”, Saigon and its surroundings. The other maps the telegraph lines of southern Vietnam and Cambodia: Vietnam Post dates it 1936, Wikipedia 1892.
- The portrait of Ho Chi Minh at the far end of the central hall, which everything in the room leads to.
- The telephone booths along both sides of the hall. One of them is now the Tem Booth.
Older guides tell you to find Dương Văn Ngộ, the last public letter writer, at his desk in the hall. He died at home on 1 August 2023, aged 94.
A short history of the Saigon Post Office
The building went up between 1886 and 1891. Who designed it depends on whom you ask. The historian Tim Doling found an architecture journal from September 1891 that reported its inauguration and credited “the distinguished Chief Architect of the Colony, M. Foulhoux”, meaning Alfred Foulhoux. Vietnam Post’s own history credits an architect named Villedieu with Foulhoux as his assistant. The story that Gustave Eiffel designed it appears in neither, and Doling calls it an error. The Vietnam Post unit that runs it was founded in 1986 and marked 40 years in 2026. In November 2025 the post office formally asked the city to list the building as a heritage relic, and we have found no decision yet.
Notre-Dame Cathedral Saigon: can you go inside?
Only for Mass. The parish’s website carries this line, in Vietnamese and English, above its Mass times: “During the restoration period, the church is closed to tourists, but it remains open for the faithful to attend daily Mass.” You cannot walk in to look round, but anyone can attend a service, and the outside is free to see and photograph from the square at any hour. Some English guides still say the cathedral has reopened, or list daily visiting hours. It has not reopened, and there are none.
The cathedral is at 1 Công xã Paris, Sài Gòn Ward. In Vietnamese it is Nhà thờ Đức Bà, and its full English name is the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon.
Notre-Dame Mass times, including the English Mass
If you want to see the inside, go to Mass. These are the parish’s own times:
| Day | Mass times |
|---|---|
| Monday to Saturday | 05:30 and 17:30 (on Saturday the 17:30 Mass is the Sunday vigil) |
| Sunday | 05:30, 08:00, 09:30 (in English), 16:00, 17:30 and 19:00 |
| Thursday and Friday | Eucharistic Adoration at 20:00 |
A December 2025 newspaper report listed a Sunday Mass at 14:00. The parish lists 16:00, so trust the parish. This is a working cathedral in the middle of a restoration, so go to worship rather than to sightsee, and dress as you would for church at home. Questions about Mass go to the parish office on (+84) 823 721 439, which also takes Zalo, Viber and WhatsApp.
The restoration so far
- 1 July 2017. The restoration began, the first in the cathedral’s history.
- March 2023. The two original crosses, 127 years old, came down from the spires, corroded beyond repair.
- Late 2025. Scaffolding went up inside the church to deal with water-damaged walls. In December, Father Ignatio Hồ Văn Xuân, who leads the work, told Thanh Niên it could not be finished in 2027 as first planned.
- 19 March 2026. Two new gold-plated crosses, each weighing about 400 kg and made in Belgium, were lifted onto the 57 m zinc spires.
- 21 to 28 May 2026. Eight rows of decorative crests went onto the window gables of the two spires. It is the latest work the archdiocese has reported.
VnExpress International still wrote in March 2026 that the restoration was “expected to be completed in 2027”, three months after the priest in charge said it could not be. We have found no newer target date. Our advice: assume the inside stays closed to tourists unless the parish says otherwise, and check its website before you plan round a visit.
What you can see from outside
With the new crosses on top since March, the spires have their crosses back for the first time since 2023, and the front faces the post office across the square. Last Christmas the cathedral was lit at night from 18:45 to 23:00 from 29 November, and until 02:00 from 8 December to 5 January. The 2026 times have not been announced.
A short history of the cathedral
The cathedral was completed in 1880 with two square bell towers. The pointed spires, six bronze bells and the original crosses were added in 1895, taking it over 60 m. The statue of Our Lady of Peace in front of it was installed in 1959, which is when the name Notre-Dame came into use, and in 1962 the cathedral was made a basilica.
Book Street (Đường sách Nguyễn Văn Bình)
Book Street is Nguyễn Văn Bình, the short street beside the cathedral and the post office, closed to traffic and lined with bookshop stalls and book cafés under old tamarind trees. The city opened it on 9 January 2016, and it marked ten years in January 2026. In August 2026 the website 1000libraries put it in its top ten book markets in the world, the first time it has made that list, and in the first half of 2026 the street held 256 cultural events. The name on the sign belongs to the late Archbishop Phaolô Nguyễn Văn Bình.
The company that runs it publishes no opening hours. The last regular hours we found in the press were 08:30 to 21:00 daily, from 2021, and in November 2025 its director said the street goes quiet after 18:00. That month it started a Book and Night Culture Festival (Ngày hội Sách và Văn hóa đêm), and Znews reported in August 2026 that it now runs over three evenings, Friday to Sunday, at the end of each month (the seventh was 31 July to 2 August). Outside those evenings, go in the daytime. For coffee with a book elsewhere in the city, see our guide to Saigon’s best book cafés.
If you come by motorbike, parking round the square has been in flux this year. A permit for pavement parking on Công xã Paris and Hai Bà Trưng ran until 11 May 2026. The ward first asked the city to withdraw it, then in April said it backed keeping the Công xã Paris lot, and we have found nothing since. A Grab avoids the question.
How long you need, and when to go
We have not timed this one ourselves. A visitor guide updated in October 2026 allows about 20 minutes for the post office, or 40 if you write and post a card, and calls the time before 08:30 the quietest, before the tour groups arrive. Add Book Street and a look at the cathedral from the square, and an hour should cover all three.
So aim for 08:00, when every source agrees the post office is open, and do the cathedral and Book Street either side of it. If you want to see inside the cathedral, plan round a Mass instead: Sunday at 09:30 for English, or 17:30 on any day.
Getting to the Post Office and Notre-Dame
A Grab car or bike to “Bưu điện Trung tâm Sài Gòn” takes you to the post office, with the cathedral across the square. The nearest metro stop is the Opera House station on Line 1, next to the Opera House, about 550 m away. Ben Thanh Market is about 800 m to the south.
From the Independence Palace it is about 500 m. Walk through Công viên 30/4, the park that was once the palace’s front yard, and the cathedral is less than 200 m beyond it.
Where to eat and drink near the Post Office and Notre-Dame
The places below are Saigon Scene partners, which means they give Scene Pass members a discount in return for being featured, and that is why they come first. We picked them because they are among our closest partners to the square: two are about 170 m from the cathedral on Pasteur, and the rest are within about 600 m. The member discount comes off regular prices and never on top of a happy hour or another offer.
Luli’s Kitchen
Luli’s Kitchen at 182A Pasteur is our closest partner to the cathedral. It is a family-run Vietnamese restaurant owned by a Franco-Vietnamese couple, cooking home-style food. Order the bánh xèo or the phở.
BEPBO
Next door at 180A Pasteur, BEPBO serves Australian and American beef as an everyday steakhouse rather than a special-occasion one. Its signature is bò xèo, its own take on bò né, the sizzling-plate beef.
Somtam ZAAP
Somtam ZAAP at 136 Pasteur cooks Thai food with a lean towards Isan, the north-east: papaya salad, pad Thai, fried chicken wings and shrimp-paste fried rice. The restaurant lists its hours as 11:00 to 23:00 daily, so it works for lunch or dinner.
2 Lam Son Bar
For a drink after the sights, 2 Lam Son Bar is the Park Hyatt’s cocktail bar at 2 Lam Sơn Square, by the Opera House, about 500 m from the cathedral. It has a happy hour, which you can check on our happy-hour map, and the member discount applies outside it.
7 Bridges Brewing, Lê Thánh Tôn
The 7 Bridges taproom at 15B/12 Lê Thánh Tôn, in the Japantown alleys about 600 m away, is the late option: the brewery lists it as open daily from 12:00 to 02:00. Start with Dragon, the session IPA it is best known for. The member discount here covers food, not drinks.
Back of the Bike Tours
If the square is your first afternoon in Saigon, Back of the Bike Tours fills the evening: street-food tours on the back of a motorbike with a local driver, and pick-up and drop-off at hotels in central Saigon. Book with the code “saigonscene” to get the member rate.
What is nearby
- Independence Palace tickets, hours and what to see, about 500 m away across Công viên 30/4. Open 07:00 to 18:00 every day.
- The War Remnants Museum, with its tickets, hours and galleries, about 15 minutes on foot. Open 07:30 to 17:30, 60,000₫.
- Ben Thanh Market, its opening hours and food stalls, about 800 m south.
- The Opera House, about 550 m away, and Nguyễn Huệ walking street beyond it. Our District 1 guide covers them, and explains the new ward names you will see on addresses round here.
For every other sight in the city with prices and hours, see our guide to things to do in Ho Chi Minh City.
How we checked
We checked every fact on this page on 29 October 2026. The cathedral’s access rule and Mass times come from the parish’s own website, chinhtoasaigon.org, read that day. The restoration timeline comes from the archdiocese’s reports on tgpsaigon.net (the latest, on the window crests, published in June 2026), from VnExpress International and Dân Trí on the crosses (March 2026), and from Thanh Niên’s interview with the priest leading the work (December 2025). The post office’s history, maps, Tem Booth and anniversary come from Vietnam Post’s own pages, Tuổi Trẻ, VnExpress and the historian Tim Doling. Free entry is from Dân Trí (September 2026). Book Street’s history, hours, events and parking come from its operator, Thanh Niên, Tuổi Trẻ, PLO, Vietnamnet and Znews. Partner offers come from our own partner records, and the two venue opening times from the venues’ own websites. Addresses use the ward names that replaced the districts in July 2025.
This guide is a desk check: nobody from Saigon Scene walked the square for it. The visit length comes from a recent visitor guide rather than our own stopwatch, and the post office hours are the overlap of published sources, not a sign we photographed. Mass times and hours change, so check the parish website before you plan round a service.
Saigon Post Office and Notre-Dame: your questions answered
Is the Saigon Central Post Office free to visit?
Yes. There is no ticket for the post office, Book Street or the cathedral square. You pay only for stamps, postcards or souvenirs.
What are the Saigon Central Post Office opening hours?
Vietnam Post does not publish them. Press reports from 2024 and 2025 give 07:00 to 18:00 or 07:00 to 19:00, and some travel sites say 08:00 to 17:00. Every source we found agrees it is open from 08:00 to 17:00, so go within those hours.
Can you go inside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Saigon?
Only for Mass. The parish says the church is closed to tourists during the restoration but open to the faithful for daily Mass. You can see and photograph the outside from the square at any time.
When will Notre-Dame Cathedral in Saigon reopen?
No date has been set. The restoration began on 1 July 2017, and in December 2025 the priest leading it said it could not be finished in 2027 as first planned. No new target has been announced.
What time is the English Mass at Notre-Dame Saigon?
Sunday at 09:30. The other Sunday Masses are at 05:30, 08:00, 16:00, 17:30 and 19:00, and from Monday to Saturday there is Mass at 05:30 and 17:30.
Can you still send a postcard from the Saigon post office?
Yes. It is still a working post office: buy a card in the hall and the stamp at the counter. The Tem Booth, opened in the main hall in September 2025, can also print your photo as a postcard to send.
What is Book Street in Saigon?
Đường sách Nguyễn Văn Bình, a short pedestrian street of bookshops and book cafés beside the post office and the cathedral, open since 9 January 2016. It is free, and busiest in the daytime.
Who designed the Saigon Central Post Office?
An 1891 architecture journal, found by the historian Tim Doling, credits Alfred Foulhoux, the colony’s chief architect. Vietnam Post credits an architect named Villedieu with Foulhoux as his assistant. Neither supports the popular story that Gustave Eiffel designed it.
