VIETNAM
Hai Phong
Not a great deal is written, in English, about Hai Phong and is still a work in progress. Located in the North a few hours away from the Chinese border it has one of the biggest ports in the whole of Asia. Halong Bay, a UNESCO site is part of its metropolitan area and is about a 20 minute drive away. The people are good, not complicated, they are not smiley smiley, they are polite but will give you your distance. Hai Phong is not part of the tourist ‘to do’ world, it is a working town redefining itself in modern Vietnam.
However, it is, in my eyes, about to enter into an amazing journey as its location will be at the fore of Chinese-Vietnamese cooperation with economic investment. The Chinese are assisting with the development and building of the new train line that will eventually link China to Hanoi with the first stage going into Hai Phong. Of course development comes at a cost especially as the investors is China. How it will change things will be very interesting to observe and as we, my son and I, are attached to the city through family and business interests we can following its modern history and development.
And he came too 