Vietnam Has the Potential to Become Asia's Next Cruising Destination

Created by webmaster. Last modified on 2002-08-19 00:50:58
Contributors: Terry Baker
Topic: Cruising Information
Countries: Vietnam

Your comments on Vietnam as a cruising destination (What's New in July) may still be valid, but I would caution about the need to treat this subject in a more objective manner. Each country is very different and Vietnam shouldn't be written off quite so quickly. I was based in Vietnam for business from 1998 to 2000 and the pace of change, particularly tourism was simply amazing.

During my time in Vietnam we were able to gain access to a high speed RIB and safely and legally covered several thousand miles along the Mekong Delta. It did take several months to work through the various departments to do this correctly and of course this would have been impossible had we not lived there. During this time we formed the "An Phu Yacht Club (APYC)" named after the district the club was located in.

I have no doubt that gaining permission to cruise will still be difficult, but I do not believe it would be impossible nor face the same problems as the Hong Kong to Nha Trang race faced. Hopefully Vietnam will open up as it is a very good destination with some excellent deep water cruising grounds, that I saw from various day trips within the country. Vietnam has a vast cruising potential. Ha Long Bay, Nha Trang and Da Nang have the potential to match anything that Thailand has to offer, if only they could do something about pollution and stop dropping the thousands of plastic bags in the water.

I feel the recent report on Noonsite relied on information and opinion from a small group that had a poor experience quite a few years ago. If we adopt this as the yardstick countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia etc would still not be accessible.

Terry Baker, July 2002

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