To
many Westerners, travelling on old ferries full of villagers and baskets of
vegetables, chickens and squealing pigs is a sheer delight. It's time to lay
back, chat or snooze as the sturdy vessels churn through the water.
That's why when told by hotel and tourist
staff in Hoi An recently that foreigners were not allowed to travel on ferries
because they carry insurance for Vietnamese only was a big disappointment.
"Foreigners must go by launch," I was repeatedly told.
So, as we churned toward mysterious Cham
Islands several kilometres offshore there was none of the expected magic. The
narrow launch we had to travel on slapped, bumped and crashed through every
wave. It was just too long and skinny to comfortably manoeuvre the seas made
choppy by surging river water and offshore winds.
The Asian and Western tourists on board
squealed with delight for a minute or so and then sat back in silent disbelief
as the spray surged higher and the launch banged and thumped on its way.
The return journey was even worse. The launch
was smaller and narrower. As it tried to mount the waves coming from all
directions several hundred metres from Hoi An, looks of fear flashed across
everyone's eyes.
I eyed the lifebelts pushed under feet of the
"captain," a young man working without a helper. My two Vietnamese
companions could not swim, so I stood up to try and get them a couple. Bang!
The launch dropped to the bottom of another wave and I was thrown to the floor.
The day after the trip, I visited the Hoi An
Department of Tourism to ask why foreigners were not allowed on the slow, but
safe, old ferries. When told they carried no insurance for foreigners, I
replied that I would rather be alive and uninsured on a slow boat than dead and
insured on a fast one.
To his credit, the Deputy Manager of the
department, Tran Van Nhan, looked me straight in the eye and said: "I
understand. I will advise all hotels, travel agencies and tourist booking
offices that tourists, no matter where they are from, can travel on the old
ferries if they choose."
Nhan went so far as to say, "Those who
say that ferry boats are not permitted to take tourists to Cham Islands are
doing something wrong - maybe for their own benefit."
Of course he was right. The fare by launch is
many times higher than by ferry. The push to get foreigners on fast launches
seems to be linked to the development of a snorkelling industry on Cham Islands
- an industry in which foreign instructors are involved.
But I do not see why I or any other Western or
Asian tourist should be used to support an industry that they have no interest
in.
The Hoi An Department of Tourism is to be
congratulated on its prompt and efficient action. Its response reflects the
friendly and caring attitude of Hoi An's shopkeepers and restaurateurs in general.
In fact, the city's attitude towards the
tourist trade - and the extraordinary level of English - could be used as a
model for the rest of Vietnam.
To sum up: Foreigners don't mind paying for
service, but they do resent being milked all the way down the line.
John Ball,
Viet Nam News, ANN
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