Vung Tau Day Trip: Christ the King Statue, Battlefields, Tunnels & Bánh Khọt

Ho Chi Minh

Highlights

Visit Song Vinh Cathedral — one of Vietnam’s most striking neo-Gothic churches, rising above the Vung Tau coastline.
Walk the ground of the Battle of Long Tan — the Long Tan Cross, Nui Dat Task Force Base, and Luscombe Airfield tell Australia’s Vietnam War story.
Explore the Long Phuoc Tunnels — a lesser-known wartime underground network, quieter and more personal than Cu Chi.
Climb to the outstretched arms of the 32-metre Christ the King Statue for a panorama of Vung Tau’s peninsula and the South China Sea.
Close the day with Bánh Khật — Vung Tau’s signature crispy mini savory pancakes, best eaten where they were invented.

About

Vung Tau sits on a narrow cape jutting into the South China Sea, two hours southeast of Ho Chi Minh City. For most visitors, it’s a beach town. The reality is richer: the peninsula and its surrounding province hold colonial churches, Australian Vietnam War memorials, wartime tunnels, and one of southern Vietnam’s most dramatic hilltop monuments.

Your day starts with a 7:00 AM hotel pick-up and the drive east out of the city. By the time you reach Song Vinh Cathedral, the morning light is still cool and the Gothic spires rise above the surrounding streets with genuine presence. From here, the tour moves to the Battlefield Sites of Phuoc Tuy Province: the Long Tan Cross (memorial for the 1966 battle where Australian and New Zealand forces engaged a far larger NVA and Viet Cong force), the former Nui Dat Task Force Base (SAS Hill), and the Luscombe Airfield. For anyone with Australian, New Zealand, or broader Commonwealth connections — or simply a serious interest in the Vietnam War — these sites are significant and rarely covered by standard Saigon day trips.

At the Long Phuoc Tunnels, your guide takes you through a wartime underground network used by Viet Cong fighters during the conflict. Less trafficked and more personal than the Cu Chi Tunnels, the story told here is a local one that puts a specific village in the context of the wider war.

After lunch, the afternoon heads to Christ the King Statue — a 32-metre figure of Christ on the summit of Nui Lon Hill. The climb takes around 20 minutes on stone steps, and the view from the outstretched arms is among the best in southern Vietnam: the full sweep of the Vung Tau peninsula, the sea on both sides, the coast curving away to the south. The day closes at Tam Thang Square and with a plate of Bánh Khật — the small, crunchy savory pancakes that are Vung Tau’s most famous contribution to Vietnamese street food, and the kind of thing that’s worth the drive on its own.