How a rising tourism tide lifts all boats in Vietnam

As Vietnam prepares to welcome up to 17 million international tourists this year, a 30 per cent increase on last year’s record, even those in the nation’s most impoverished regions are ready to reap the benefits.
Among them is Zu, a Black Hmong woman from the tiny village of Ta Van in northwest Vietnam, who walks the rice terraces of her neighbourhood for almost six hours every day.
She married at 16 and had her first child soon after. Now 24 and a mother of two, Zu takes tourists…