APT TRAVEL of Hanoi could have cost us our lives. APT TRAVEL of Hanoi have no concept of their obligation to guarantee the safety and welfare of their paying customers.
Before we tell our nightmarish tale, please know that we dealt happily with APT and enjoyed their various tours in 2005. They were a small company then, but expansion, growth have caused them to ignore quality, safety, efficiency, etc. We are more disappointed with them than angry.
We started to have reservations about APT after we did the Tam Coc tour. It was bad enough that the guide spoke incomprehensible English, but he caused a group of 20 to wait around over an hour in a hot car park in Hoa Lu while he took a group of three tourists on a pushbike ride from Tam Coc to Hoa Lu. We were inconvenienced so that APT could make a few dollars more.
We took the 3 day / 2 night tour of Halong Bay on 16 April, 08 and hoped it would be as glorious an experience as it had been nearly three years before. I couldnt help but notice the bald tyres on the bus that was to drive 175 km. From Hanoi to Halong City, where we were to catch the boat to Catba Island via a lot of beautiful scenery and a visit to a cave. The Tour Guide seemed a pleasant enough young man who spoke quite good English. When we approached him and said we were concerned that we were the only members of the tour group with luggage, as we were to have 2 nights at a Catba City Hoteland were we on the right boat? He assured us all would be well. We suspected something was not right at all when we sailed into an isolated harbour with no houses of any sort about. The Guide walked us to what seemed a public bus that was already full. The Guide had said that we were at the Old Harbour 30 km from our hotel... And that this was the LAST BUS of the day. We made it clear that we were willing to stand, but the bus driver refused, and when we attempted to enter the bus, we were forcefully shoved off. Throughout all of this, the TOUR GUIDE SAID NOT A WORD. Xe Om, motorcycle boys & men who make their living transporting pillion passengers, then besieged us. They demanded an extortionate fare.in the meantime, the Tour Guide just walked away, ignored us when he called to him, pleaded with him for some rescue, and calmly got back on the boat and returned to Hanoi. He had a mobile phone but did not use it. WE WERE ABANDONED to a grasping mob that spoke no English.
We waited an hour and a bit in the vain hope that the Guide had phoned for help once aboard. At 5pm we realised that we would have to pay two Xe Om and pray we got to the hotel in one piece. This was no straight, flat road. Luckily there was no traffic, and the visibility was endless. There was, of course, another snag: we had no idea which hotel it was. We had left it all to APT to get us from A to B to C, etc. Thus, a hair-raising hour later, we set out to find out the name of the hotel. The manager of the SUNSET HOTEL was so upset at hearing our sad story (for it was here that the Xe Om dropped us off) that he set out to find out which hotels APT employs after first trying to ring the APT office in Hanoi. Within 15 minutes we were in our hotel room.
We let the local APT agent know of our plight, and he said he would phone Hanoi. We decided to just enjoy the rest of the tour and deal with the situation when we returned to Hanoi. But APT was soon at it again when it let down a whole busload of tourists including us by having them swelter for 175km in a clapped out bus with no functioning a/c and with few windows that could be opened. Once again bald tyres.
We were staying at the APT Hotel (which we found good value with excellent staff), and we expected a rep. To await us with an apology and the return of the money spent on the Xe Om. No such thing. We had to phone them, and APT thought it was some generosity on their part to repay us. We tried to get across that the Tour Guide had a responsibility for our welfare & safety, that he had various options for helping us but chose to abandon us. Talk about what ifs: what if we had had more baggage, not enough money, had had an accident on the bikes, been robbed, murdered, etc. The response was a blank look. Once APT had our money, they, and they alone, determined their responsibility.
THUS, if you value your health & safety, avoid APT like the plague.in Hanoi there are hundreds of places to buy tours. They are ticket sellers, not tour companies. It is important to ask the name of the Tour Company before booking. If the answer is APT, ask for another company, and there are dozens of them.
Please contact us if you want more info.
Robin & Stuart
Stuart
Tolga
Australia
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