Saturday, February 19, 2005
two wrongs don't make a right...
to be organised, i had been reading ahead in the rough guide, marking comments in the margins of all the activities i like. all museums (particularly those with pottery), all shopping, all historical houses, certain low key physical activities - lovingly underlined (as if pete needed reminding!)... sometimes even marked with smiley faces.
unfortunately, i neglected to notice the opening line of the chapter on Da Lat, a mountain town famed for ethnic minority villages and strawberries, 'Western tourists may find this Vietnamese playgroud a tacky tourist hell-hole'... i did however notice not one but 3 summer palaces complete with original 1960's decor. i thought i was heading to paradise. pete, being a details man realised otherwise. oh how wrong i was.
confronted with thousands of vietnamese tourists crammed into the summer palaces and paddling around the lake in giant plexiglass swan paddleboats, we decided to retreat to the hills for a trek and a visit to an ethnic minority village (even though it was not one of my underlined activities!). even that was slightly marred by the 200 people/boyscouts we passed on the way up and then again on the way down the mountain. the visit to the minority village was not much better - our host, the village elder, sang to us manically in french.
we left the next day.
the next stop nha trang, a coastal beach town, wasn't a lot better - but at least this time i wasn't the only one who was fooled. we both agreed that we really should do a day's boat trip around the bay - highly praised in the rough guide (even warranting colour photo). this time 60 of us were herded onto a boat meant for 30, and hosted by a guide who called himself 'Funky Monkey'. For those that know the TV show 'The Office' he was a perfect vietnamese version of David Brent. Every joke was a bad joke and he was determined to get us to 'paaarty'.
pete doesn't do organised tours at the best of times - but under the circumstances all we could do was laugh. The highlight of the day was the floating bar. the idea being that anyone willing/able to swim 10m to the 'bar' floating in the open sea was rewarded with unlimited free strawberry wine. a combination of free booze and treading water that is, no doubt illegal in most of the rest of the world. every western tourist on the boat looked distinctly sheepish as we halfheartedly shouted 'paaarty' everytime someone said 'no' to another drink. just thinking about it still makes me cringe.
unfortunately, i neglected to notice the opening line of the chapter on Da Lat, a mountain town famed for ethnic minority villages and strawberries, 'Western tourists may find this Vietnamese playgroud a tacky tourist hell-hole'... i did however notice not one but 3 summer palaces complete with original 1960's decor. i thought i was heading to paradise. pete, being a details man realised otherwise. oh how wrong i was.
confronted with thousands of vietnamese tourists crammed into the summer palaces and paddling around the lake in giant plexiglass swan paddleboats, we decided to retreat to the hills for a trek and a visit to an ethnic minority village (even though it was not one of my underlined activities!). even that was slightly marred by the 200 people/boyscouts we passed on the way up and then again on the way down the mountain. the visit to the minority village was not much better - our host, the village elder, sang to us manically in french.
we left the next day.
the next stop nha trang, a coastal beach town, wasn't a lot better - but at least this time i wasn't the only one who was fooled. we both agreed that we really should do a day's boat trip around the bay - highly praised in the rough guide (even warranting colour photo). this time 60 of us were herded onto a boat meant for 30, and hosted by a guide who called himself 'Funky Monkey'. For those that know the TV show 'The Office' he was a perfect vietnamese version of David Brent. Every joke was a bad joke and he was determined to get us to 'paaarty'.
pete doesn't do organised tours at the best of times - but under the circumstances all we could do was laugh. The highlight of the day was the floating bar. the idea being that anyone willing/able to swim 10m to the 'bar' floating in the open sea was rewarded with unlimited free strawberry wine. a combination of free booze and treading water that is, no doubt illegal in most of the rest of the world. every western tourist on the boat looked distinctly sheepish as we halfheartedly shouted 'paaarty' everytime someone said 'no' to another drink. just thinking about it still makes me cringe.
// posted by courtney and pete @ 08:15 
