You’re tired of wondering around Saigon and you feel like some water fun, what’s a guy or gal to do, get out to Dam Sen Water Park. So toss you swim suit, towel and whatever you need in your bag and you’re on your way.You can get there on your own by one of the buses originating from the bus terminal; you know the place where you see all the city buses on the other side of the traffic circle in front of Ben Thanh market.
To get over there you have a lot of traffic to walk through so torque up your courage and head out. I’ve written about this before, in passing through motorbike traffic walk slowly so they can navigate around you but with buses, trucks and cars just try to stay out of their way.
Once at the terminal walk around to the back side, looking for the bus with a placard in the window stating Ben Thanh – Dam Sen.
Riding any public bus in Vietnam is always an adventure but the bus your taking terminates at Dam Sen Park so no worries, just get off when the bus stops. Cheap also, 3,000 dong, standard fare on Saigon buses and you purchase your ticket on the bus from the drivers assistant. Oh ya and she makes change.Dam Sen is really two parks, one is your standard Disneyesk and the other is of the water type. I believe you have to pay separately for each but this time I went just to the water park, the ticket cost of 80,000 dong. However, if you’re over 60 it’s no charge but you get strange looks when you request it, Oh ya and have to prove it. I wouldn’t have tried it on my own but it was my Vietnamese friend idea.
I’m not sure of the parks hours but most public places here open early and stay open late. Probably a visit during the week is best; guessing the weekends tend to be really crowded.
The park has all the standard water park stuff, wave pool, fax river to float on, small slides up to the mega ones. Kiddy area, lots of shaded areas with chairs and plenty of food vendors but you might not have much luck finding hot dogs and Hamburg’s. There is a changing area with showers and lockers for rent in the same area. The changing areas are close to the entrance but if need to be pointed in the right direction ask and if that doesn’t seem to work use a little sign language, like wave your swim suit around and soon someone will point you in the right direction.Vietnamese are pretty conservative, so guys wear dark blue/black swim trunks or just shorts and t shirts – women also in t shirts with shorts or light weight pants, maybe an old school type swim suit, no bikinis. Anyway, it ain’t no Venice Beach.
The water was pretty chilly the day I visited but the air temp was the normal Saigon day of 90 plus. So it should be a good place to literally chill out and if you have kids they will love it.
