As my second night in Vietnam drew to a close, I lay in my unexpectedly short bed, contemplating the action-packed day I had just experienced slowly lulling myself to sleep. I awoke on the second day of my trip here in Vietnam around 5:30 in the morning, again. Although I had hoped to get more rest, my excitement for the day to start drove me out of bed and back downstairs to breakfast. I watched commuters on bikes fly down the street as I filled my plate with new  dishes to try: rice cakes with a strange brown sauce to flavor, bitter melon salad, and strange bulbous sausages. As breakfast wrapped up, we boarded our bus back to UEF for a lesson in rural development surrounding the Mekong Delta and the issues and challenges Vietnam faced in the future. A staple of Vietnam’s economic prosperity, the Mekong Delta’s production of agriculture and fisheries held an important cultural distinction within the country. Largely consisting of rural farms, the area was in danger of being lost to rising sea level as well as the construction of dams to the north by other countries that the river runs through. The effects of climate change as well as the social challenges of trying to transition the entire Mekong Delta area into a more industrialised, urban landscape provide a significant stumbling block for the country to overcome in terms of preparation and planning to ensure the Delta’s continued prosperity.

As the lesson wound to a close, we spent an additional hour learning Vietnamese before heading a bit South where we had lunch at Tokyo Deli, a pleasant sushi restaurant, then heading to visit the company Phu My Hung, a large development company focused on the creation of a large, master-planned city. With a large focus on the construction of both functional and residential buildings less dense than the rest of Ho Chi Minh, the entire neighbourhood we were in, the first of five planned sites, was a beautiful mix of foreign and domestic design and influence. The residences there were astoundingly cheap, a two-bedroom apartment costing only six hundred USD a month and higher-end apartments costing one thousand a month. Phu My Hung took much pride in being a highly lauded example of successful foreign direct investment, winning multiple international awards in architecture and design, each building being designed by different firms from Malaysia to Japan to the United States. With Vietnam being a communist nation, all land is technically owned by the government, as such, there was a big explanation dedicated to the original leaders of Phu My Hung acquisition of government approval. Originally a plan to attract foreign investment through industrial plants and development, the ensuing designs for a large parkway to connect the power plants to more central parts of the city led to the realisation that the open land would make for a perfect platform as a stage for development. Issues arose as South Saigon was mostly swampland, and many officials doubted the potential the land had for any sort of development. As Phu My Hung developed a master plan and went on to show proof of concept, slowly more governments agreed to assist in sending resources and planning to further the development of the land. The master plan accounts for not only the rising ocean water, but other environmental issues from resource management to power sources, as the site we were on claims one-hundred percent electricity provided by foreign powers. The now iconic development boasts a residential population consisting of almost 46% foreigners, a shining example to back up the success they have had.

Overall, the day was spent learning about the challenges of development, from the rural life of the Mekong Delta to the real life successes of Phu My Hung. The obvious foreign influences give Phu My Hung a beautiful aesthetic, with a diverse selection of restaurants and shops as well as the presence of multiple campuses from international school ranging from kindergarten up to graduate universities. Our exit of this small city separate yet connected to the bigger Ho Chi Minh was marked by the beginning of a tropical storm, rain falling heavily as we passed Mercedes-Benz and Porsche dealerships slowly turning into the now familiar sight of crowded and dense downtown Ho Chi Minh.