Haiphong

About Haiphong

Northern Vietnam's great port has a different pace from Hanoi. Haiphong grew from a riverside trading post into a French colonial harbour city, and its boulevards are still lined with ochre villas, shady tamarind trees and, in early summer, the scarlet blossoms of the flame trees that earned it the nickname City of Red Flamboyants.

The city rewards a slow look: the domed Opera House at the heart of the old quarter, centuries-old pagodas and communal houses carved with dragons, and a food scene famed for banh da cua, a crab noodle soup with wide brown rice noodles. Locals honour Le Chan, the woman general said to have founded the first settlement here nearly two thousand years ago.

Haiphong also governs one of Vietnam's most beautiful seascapes. Cat Ba Island, its national park and the limestone towers of Lan Ha Bay are part of the Ha Long Bay–Cat Ba Archipelago World Heritage Site, while Do Son's beaches lie just south of the centre. Trains and expressways link the city with Hanoi, and Cat Bi International Airport is close to the centre.