Pho Hien

In the seventeenth century Pho Hien was the port of the north, where Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and English traders had factories and where foreign ships stopped because they were not permitted up to the capital - the phrase remembered in Vietnamese is that first comes the capital, second comes Pho Hien. Then the river shifted its course, the anchorage silted, the trade went elsewhere and the town became a provincial one. What survives is a set of temples and pagodas from the trading period, several of them founded by the Chinese community, and merchant houses, scattered through modern Hung Yen rather than as a single quarter.

What you actually see

• The north's great port of the 1600s - second only to the capital.
• Foreign factories - Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and English.
• Left inland by the river - which shifted and silted the anchorage.
• Temples from the trading years - several founded by Chinese merchants.

When to go

Year round; the Mau temple festival is in the third lunar month. Half a day.

Honest expectations

There is no preserved old quarter - the sites are scattered through a modern provincial city and need looking for. Interpretation is in Vietnamese. It rewards knowing the history rather than arriving cold.

Nearby

Nom village is north; Hanoi is north-west.