COVER STORY


ADVENTURE CRUISING


Chan May. Here, we boarded buses for a tour of the old imperial capital of Hué. En route we passed gaggles of schoolgirls in yellow ao dais – long clinging tunics slit up the sides to the waist over flared white trousers.


T


he photographers amongst us asked the driver to stop and consigned this colourful scene to a million pixels;


those who missed breakfast bought some pyramid-shaped sweet bean rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves from a street vendor who’s sparkling eyes were at odds with her wizened skin. Hué ceased to be Vietnam’s capital at the end of World War II but the Royal Tombs of the Nguyen rulers suffered widespread destruction by American forces during the 1968 Tet Offensive. After seeing the imposing citadel and restored red and gold lacquered palace, we toured this ‘city of ghosts,’ visiting historic tombs, temples, pavilions and moats before boarding a tourist boat to see the Thien Mu Pagoda on the north bank of the Perfume River. Back on board, there was a frisson as we were promised a nonesuch during our over-


74 WORLD OF CRUISING I Spring 2012


night stay at our next port of Da Nang. In the company of photographer Sue Flood (one of the five expedition leaders), who has worked on BBC Natural History programmes as ‘The Blue Planet’ and ‘Planet Earth,’ we boarded a coach for a journey south. The nascent resorts along China Beach


didn’t bode well but, as we came upon the World Heritage village of Hoi An, the superlatives that crowded each other off the page of my guidebook seemed feeble. In the mid-18th


century, it was one of


south-east Asia’s principal trading ports. Silk, spices, weapons, fragrant oils and porcelain from East and West passed through its warehouses. But the river silted up and became unnavigable and Hoi An faded to backwater status until late last century when tourism arrived. We walked over a 16th


century Japanese


covered bridge before ambling along narrow streets lined with teak shop-houses and merchants’ abodes crammed with antiques. At every turn, images were instantly etched on to my memory like a stereopticon. A cookery class at the Morning Glory


Restaurant saw us preparing and sampling ‘street food’ – considered a treat rather


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