A dozen years after it broke ground, Ho Chi Minh City has unveiled its first subway line in Vietnam’s largest city.

A train of the Line 1 of the HCMC Metro is seen past residential buildings in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 22, 2024. When construction began in 2012, authorities promised the line would be up and running in five years.

After years of funding shortages, ballooning costs and bureaucratic foot-dragging, Ho Chi Minh City is opening the first metro line to serve its 10 million residents.

Ho Con Rua (Turtle Lake) is a popular check-in hotspot for Tet-themed photos in Ho Chi Minh City. Ngoc Huyen and Thu Tham, students at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, rush to the Reunification Palace for photos. Ho Con Rua (Turtle Lake) in Ho Chi Minh City is a background for Tet-themed photos.

Amid a booming e-commerce market, tax authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have reviewed 35 livestream sellers, including celebrities, collecting significant sums, with one beauty queen paying $192,000 in taxes.

Years of start-and-stop construction means the seemingly new ticket vending machines are partly obsolete: they accept coins that are no longer in circulation.

Their motifs feature various flowers of the four seasons, namely spring, summer, fall, and winter, such as apricot blossom, peach blossom, peony, lotus, orchid, chrysanthemum, cedar and phyllostachys plant, a genus of Asian bamboo.