Halloween is an interesting holiday in HCMC. For the most part, locals don’t celebrate and if they do they usually keep it on a lower key. The celebration, however, isn’t discouraged and being a city with an active nightlife, dozens of events and parties will give you an outlet to release your inner ghoul. Instead of listing the various events throughout the city, I thought that it may be more helpful to give you the lowdown on where you can find the costumes and accessories that you will need to make your Halloween complete.

This is what happens when you don't keep your hands and feet inside the taxi.

Near the backpacker area of Pham Ngu Lao you have Halloween Art, located just around the corner on Nguyen Thai Hoc, which specialises mostly in costumes. You’ll find a wide selection of them as well as many styles of masks and a limited selection of accessories.

Witch hats, Phantom of the Opera masks and fairy wings galore.

Across the district on Pasteur Street try Hanah, one of a chain of party supply stores in the city, where you will find a greater selection of costume accessories and a healthy number of Halloween decorations. Prices here may be a little higher than the streetside Halloween shops but prices are fixed, the staff speak English, and quality is generally better.

The party supply store to go to no matter what holiday.

If you have a costume idea that is more original than what you’d expect to find in a costume store, or you want to make sure your get-up will fit perfectly, you can take a crack at designing the costume yourself. Just head down to your trusty tailor with pictures of your desired costume in hand, and see what they can do. Besides being in most cases a cheaper way to go, it’s also nice to get a costume that fits really well. The only downside is that you have to give the tailor time to create your masterpiece; this means you’ll likely have to wait at least a day before you get your costume.

Outside of the costume realm another cool, and inexpensive, way to decorate yourself for the party weekend is to find a nail shop. Many nail shops, which you can find in Pham Ngu Lao and around Ben Thanh market, will specialise in Halloween-themed nail designs at reasonable prices. Getting my nails artistically done only cost me 50,000 VND, with a 50,000 tip, and I think they look pretty sweet!

See what I mean?!

Once you have your costume you are ready to hit the town. Just in case you don’t stumble into any costume parties here are a few to look out for: Lush, on Ly Tu Trong, has a party every night from October 28 to 31, starting at 23:00 and on Saturday you can find parties at Ala Mezon, on Chu Manh Trinh, and Vasco’s, on Hai Ba Trung.

Halloween Art
103 Nguyen Thai Hoc, District 1
(09) 0810 5914

Hanah
182 Pasteur, District 1
(08) 3825 1470

More still
» Previous post: Saigon street food: Make friends with a drink vendor
» Next post: Hanoi’s 36 streets: Hang Ma and Hang Chieu

Disclaimer
Travelfish.org always pays its way. No exceptions.

Tags: Halloween, Saigon