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Published: April 12th 2014
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stApril Chan May, Vietnam
We arrived here very late because of a technical issue with the ship. We were booked on a tour to the city of Hue some 90 minutes away. More of that later.
The port of Chan May is between two cities, Da Nang and Hue. Da Nang was America’s major strategic base during the Vietnam War and in 1968 during the Tet offensive, Hue was soon under the control of the communists. Hue was reduced to rubble with over 4000 civilians killed during this time. Hue became a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1993 (UNESCO).
Hue has been the subject of an extensive rebuilding programme for many years with sights like the Citadel, Imperial City, pagodas and mausoleums must see attractions for tourists tha visit the city.
Now onto our tour, in a nutshell it was to take in total 8 hours, we set off just before 1.30 pm and the ship was leaving at 8.30pm. It gets dark here at 6.30 pm. Compute. NOT ENOUGH TIME!!! And you can’t see historic sites when it is pitch dark.
So onto the coach
to drive to Hue.
First rule of the day about driving from Chan May to Hue with our driver. There are no rules!
At one stage two/three passengers were pleading with him to slow down and stop the crazy overtaking moves he was making. Pretty hair raising.
Arrive Hue – lunch – very subdued from our coach. Very short stop, to the river for a trip on the ‘Perfume River’ to take us to Thien Mu Pagoda (a Buddhist shrine).
I’m a little confused here because after 10/15 minutes here we had to go back down loads of steps we had all just scrambled up to get back to the coaches to travel to the Imperial Citadel. From the public car park it was a walk through the traffic (that was an experience –single file) to the Citadel, through the Noon Gate for a walking tour, by the time some of us got into the main square we were met the guide coming back out. Not Good!!
It was now about 5.30pm and the locals were all finishing work, so we ran the
gauntlet of traffic back to the coach to be driven to a local market (Dong Ba) ‘for a little free time’.
10 minutes later we are heading to our final destination, a mausoleum some 17 km from the market. It was getting dark; when we arrived it was pitch black and no lights. Some people got off to take a look (we didn’t), when they got back all they could say ‘waste of time’.
Back to the ship, arriving at 8.25pm to be hustled back aboard because they had to sail at 8.30pm.
All in all not a good tour, one of the poorest organised so far and I think Cunard and especially the Tour Office should be taken to task for such poor decisions.
Next Stop Singapore
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