Hai Phong travel guide: French quarter, crab noodles and the Cat Ba link

Why stop for a night instead of passing through

Hai Phong grew up as a port, not as a royal or provincial capital. The local historian Ngo Dang Loi, quoted by Thanh Nien, points out that before the French arrived the area had only the villages of Gia Vien and An Bien; after 1872 the colonial authorities took land on the Cam River and laid out a new city on a grid. That is why the centre feels so different from Hanoi's Old Quarter: wide, straight streets, yellow public buildings and a long garden strip where a canal used to be.

The city is also bigger than it was. On 1 July 2025 Hai Phong merged with Hai Duong province; the city newspaper gives the new city an area of 3,194.72 square kilometres and more than 4.6 million people, organised into 114 wards, communes and special zones. The old urban districts were abolished in the reorganisation, but many addresses and maps still use their names, such as Hong Bang and Le Chan, so expect to see both old and new names.

For a traveller the useful Hai Phong is small. The Opera House, the museum, the post office, the station and the flower-garden strip around Tam Bac Lake are all within walking distance of each other, and the city's best-known dishes are cooked in ordinary shops in the same streets. Book a room in that centre and you can do everything below without a taxi.

Walking the French quarter

Start at the Opera House (Nha hat Thanh pho), which faces a large square at 28 Tran Hung Dao. According to the city newspaper, construction began in 1898 and finished in November 1900 on the site of the old An Bien village market, with materials shipped from France and Vietnamese workers building it under a French architect. It was inspired by the Palais Garnier in Paris and has a horseshoe-shaped auditorium of 400 seats. The square has been the stage for the city's big moments: the 1945 rally that set up a revolutionary committee, a day-long last stand by 13 soldiers in November 1946, and the welcome for Vietnamese troops on 13 May 1955. The Ministry of Culture listed it as a national monument in 2015.

The long garden strip and Tam Bac Lake in front of the theatre follow the line of the Bonnal Canal, which the French dug to separate their concession from the Vietnamese town; three bridges once linked the two. North and east of it lay the European quarter, and its streets — today Hoang Van Thu, Minh Khai, Le Dai Hanh and Dien Bien Phu — still hold many of the colonial buildings. Dien Bien Phu, the old Boulevard Paul Bert, was the grandest. Walk it slowly: the city's former Chamber of Commerce, built in 1895 with a three-faced clock tower, is now the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the former Franco-Chinese Bank of 1919 is the Hai Phong Museum.

The museum opened on 20 December 1959; the city's foreign-affairs portal calls it Vietnam's first local museum and says more than 2,000 objects are on display, from ceramics and textiles to paper and basketwork. Close by are the post office on Nguyen Tri Phuong Street, built in 1905 and still a post office, and the former town hall, completed in 1905 and now the seat of the city People's Committee. We could not find official opening hours for the museum; check locally before you plan around it.

Finish at Hai Phong station, the terminus of the line from Hanoi. The city's portal dates it to 1902 and describes it as a symmetrical neoclassical building — in other words, the yellow facade and clock you will see as you arrive or leave.

Du Hang Pagoda: the city before the French

To see what was here before the port, take a short taxi ride from the centre to Du Hang Pagoda (Chua Hang, formally Phuc Lam Tu), in the Le Chan area. According to its steles, as summarised by the city government, its origins go back to the Early Le dynasty (980–1009); it was enlarged in 1672 and restored again in 1899 and 1917, and it was listed as a national historical and cultural relic in 1986.

Inside the gate, a three-tiered bell tower holds a large bronze bell inscribed "Phuc Lam tu chung". The seven-bay main hall is built of ironwood columns and decorated with gilded lacquer boards and carvings in the late Nguyen style. To the right of the gate is a statue garden around a pond, with a seated Buddha under a bodhi tree, a black Maitreya and ten white stone figures; to the left, a quiet garden of eleven stone stupas holds the remains of former abbots and masters of the Truc Lam Zen school.

The pagoda also has a modern history. In 1926 monks, students and workers gathered here to hold a memorial for the patriot Phan Chu Trinh, and after the August Revolution of 1945 it hosted the launch of Hai Phong's National Salvation Buddhist association and a "Gold Week" fundraising drive. It is an active place of worship: dress modestly, keep your voice down and ask before photographing people at prayer.

Getting here from Hanoi, and on to Cat Ba

The train is the most pleasant way in from Hanoi. When we checked on 2026-10-03, the city newspaper's timetable for the line, in force from 10 February 2026, listed departures from Hanoi station at 6:00, 9:25 and 15:15 and an evening train from Long Bien at 18:20 (from Hanoi station at weekends and holidays), with daytime runs taking roughly two and a half to two and three-quarter hours. Times change; check Vietnam Railways before you travel. The haiphongnews portal puts the city a little over 100 kilometres from Hanoi.

Cat Bi International Airport is about 8 kilometres from the centre. It mostly handles domestic flights, so many international visitors land at Hanoi's Noi Bai instead and come on by road or rail.

For Cat Ba, the city newspaper describes two main routes from Hai Phong: the Dong Bai – Cai Vieng ferry, followed by the road across the island, and the cable car that lands at Phu Long station. A 2022 report also described high-speed boats from Ben Binh pier in central Hai Phong taking about 45 minutes; check current departures with the operator. Drivers should know that the ferry fills up: over the summer of 2026 (weekends from 9 May to 30 September) the city's Department of Construction stopped taking cars and lorries towards Cat Ba between 9:00 and 13:00 and pointed travellers to the cable car, speedboats and buses instead. Check for similar limits around public holidays.

Weather decides the water. Quang Ninh suspended overnight and evening boat permits on neighbouring Ha Long Bay ahead of Storm Maysak in July 2026, and storms on this stretch of coast can stop the Cat Ba crossings too, so if you are crossing to the islands between June and September, keep the Hai Phong night flexible and do not book a tight onward connection.

A workable one-night plan

This is an editorial suggestion, not a timetable. Check opening times and departures for anything you build the day around.

• Afternoon: arrive by train or road, drop your bags in the centre and walk from the station along the garden strip to the Opera House square.
• Late afternoon: Dien Bien Phu Street, the museum facade and the old post office while the light is soft on the yellow buildings.
• Evening: nem cua be (square crab spring rolls) for dinner, then a walk around Tam Bac Lake.
• Next morning: banh da cua for breakfast and a bag of banh mi cay for the journey, then the ferry, cable car or speedboat to Cat Ba.
• With a second night: Du Hang Pagoda in the morning and a slower food day around Cat Cut and Hang Kenh.

When to go, and the Red Flamboyant Festival

Hai Phong shares its weather with Ha Long Bay next door. The national tourism site describes September to November as cool with clear skies, December to March as misty, April and May as sunny with a breeze, and June to August as the monsoon season, when visits can be unpredictable. For a city stop the weather matters less than for the islands, but it decides whether your onward boat leaves.

Locals call Hai Phong the city of red flamboyant flowers (hoa phuong do), and the Red Flamboyant Festival is its big annual event. In 2026 it opened on the evening of 8 May, ahead of Liberation Day on 13 May, as part of a programme of more than 60 cultural, sports and tourism events from late March to the end of May, with the peak from 8 to 14 May. Expect a lively centre and fireworks around those dates, and book your room early.