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It might seem strange but Vietnam didn't have it's first superhighway until just this past Sunday, December 30, 2007.

Actually, the toll plazas were already being used for the two frontage roads on the sides of the highway (using these WON'T exempt one from paying a toll).

The highway connects District 5 with Highway 1A, which connects to Vietnam's most famous road, Highway 1. The Nguyen Van Linh Parkway is about seven miles long. While the road is finished, they have not even yet begun starting overpasses, underpasses, exits, and entrances. In other words, it's just a twelve lane highway with a wide median... and traffic lights and intersections...

It has the latest in technology for 1935.

What's next? Personal checks? Root beer? Coffee pots?

Stay tuned...

Is it an information Superhighway?

I used the term "super highway" because the local media calls this road a "freeway." But being from California, we know there is a difference between a freeway and a toll road (we never adopted "Tollway" for a control access highway that charges a fee). By a California definition (not a Chicago one), the road is a toll expressway.

Consequently, when I lived in Indonesia, all of the control access highways in that country charge a fee. When they referred Interstates, freeways, expressways, and toll roads in the United States, they called them all "toll roads" (both in Indonesian AND English). I tried to explain that most such American roads don't charge a toll but get their funding from gasoline taxes. Their reply: "What a country! You can drive for free." (Gasoline in Indonesia is still one of the cheapest bargains in the world.)