Vietnam Travel > Travel Special Features > Hai Phong - Portrait of a Port Town

Hai Phong - Portrait of a Port Town

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The city's nostalgic architecture is further enhanced by its abundance of trees. Hai Phong is famous for it "hoa phuong", or Phoenix flower, which blooms brilliantly red from canopied trees, scattering down onto the streets against schoolgirl�s traditional white Ao Dai dresses. Fewer phoenix trees now stand in Hai Phong than they used to, but in their place are tamarind, and more recently Bang Lang trees (lagerstroemia), while coast Do Son, 30 kilometers to the East, rolls with green pine hills and sand born coconut trees.

The northern edge of Hai Phong city is split by the Cua Cam River, where the Hai Phong Port is located. To the west is the brand-new Binh Bridge, whose cables cross the river in measured arches. South of Hai Phong Port lies the city's center, where the river used to curve through it before the French regime turned the skinny flow of water into a long path of parks, between Tran Hung Dao road and Tran Phu Road. running perpendicular to the Cua Cam River, this long pathway now houses five major squares and three new fountains (at the Flag tower Open garden, Le Chan Garden and Nguyen Van Troi Garden), a lofty statue of ancient war heroine Le Chan, and the opera house, now adorned with the red banners and raised flags of the Party.

Intersecting the parkway is Dien Bien Phu, where colonial architecture reigns on both sides of this wide boulevard. At number 65 is the Hai Phong Museum, long painted a raspberry-rose hue and still in its colonial angled form with tall, arched windows and gothic gates built after weapons from the middle Ages. Erected in 1919, the museum holds 14 exhibition rooms covering 9 main subjects.

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