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Photo by Helmut Koch, Vivid sky with Northern Lights, Yukon, Canada

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by Helmut Koch,
Camping under Northern Lights,
Yukon, Canada



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Old 19 Sep 2016
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The most spoiled country I've seen so far!
Just returned from a month in Vietnam and I must confess to being disappointed by the clear scale of tourism construction in coast areas all down the east side. Don't get me wrong there are some stunning things to see in VN but there is obviously a massive push by the government to encourage tourism. The amount of 6 lane road building projects all made to service even more hotels and resorts is like nothing I have ever seen. Huge plush looking hotels and apartments with theme parks, amusement parks, its all there. But something is missing, the tourists and the insides of the hotels. Many are just completed shells with abundant lighting to look the part as you pass by, but look closely and it's empty, some don't have windows yet. It all appears as fake. But it continues on an epic scale, more roads more hotels ......... I guess the thinking is "build it, and they will come" It just all looks so out of control to me.

I loved the remoteness in the West & North of VN, but East for me was horrid.
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Old 19 Sep 2016
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When I was in Vietnam about five years ago I met an Australian businessman who told me he had gone along to a few seminars on investing in the Vietnamese tourist industy, he said he was now retired but had worked most of his life in the Australian hospitality industry and went along to these meeting out of interest and had concluded that they were a massive scam to get foreign investment in hotels and other infrastructure. He had visited some of the finished developments and spoken to staff and found out occupancy rates were only a few percent instead of the 50% plus promised, but developers, local councillors and planning officials had all got their cut while investors got no return on their minimum $500,000 investment. This was just one man's opinion but there may be some truth in it.
Incidently the same man showed me his photos of his tour of Southeast Asia on an ex-police R50 in 1965, he had Angkor Wat to himself for three days and hardly saw another tourist.
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Old 19 Sep 2016
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Originally Posted by mark manley View Post
He had visited some of the finished developments and spoken to staff and found out occupancy rates were only a few percent instead of the 50% plus promised, but developers, local councillors and planning officials had all got their cut while investors got no return on their minimum $500,000 investment. This was just one man's opinion but there may be some truth in it.
Funny you should say that, we questioned how the touristy places we did stay in, could justify the staff and overheads etc. when not many customers were at breakfast, we thought perhaps we had been up late, at 7am? There is obviously a lot of money being poured in from somewhere. We also tried one of the new plush looking restaurants one night, which had a massive menu in hope of something other than rice, noodle, chicken & beef. Sadly of the 50 or so dishes offered only 4 things were possible that night. Rice, noodle, chicken or beef !

The area of Halong is particularly heavily developed and expanding by the day, even someone visiting a year ago would see major changes if they were to return. Even new sandy beach areas were appearing overnight complete with 30ft palm trees, 1000's of empty shop units ready for people to move in, amusement parks with rides, roller coasters, swimming pools all immaculate with flashing lights and music - but not open.
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