Crowds and poor service are the nightmares of Vietnamese tour guides when leading Chinese tourists during Golden Week.
Returning to Hanoi after a trip to Kunming - Lijiang - Shangri-la at the end of September, Hoai Nam, a Chinese tour guide, had a few days off because most Vietnamese travel companies this year did not organize groups to neighboring countries during the annual Golden Week holiday, which lasts 8 days from September 29 to October 6, to avoid overcrowding.
Nam once led a group to China during Golden Week in 2018 (Shanghai - Beijing route) and in 2019 (Kunming - Lijiang - Shangri-la route). "It's extremely crowded, never go during that time," Nam said.
Mid-Autumn Festival in China can be considered the climax of Golden Week because this day is associated with the meaning of "reunion". "The train station and bus station were terribly crowded, it was hard to breathe because of all the people", Nam said about his Mid-Autumn Festival experience in the country of a billion people.
Forbidden City (Beijing) during Golden Week 2015. Photo: CNN
This tour guide said that with the land tour, groups have to wait 6-8 hours to pass through the border. The time to enter by air is faster but "the wait is still quite tiring". Not all the attractions are crowded but the restaurants are always overloaded.
Nam said that when he brought customers to the restaurant, he had to stand by the kitchen door to help get food for the customers. Every time the kitchen finished a dish, Nam had to serve it himself because the restaurant did not have enough waiters. The waiting time for food was quite long and there was a lack of seats.
At destinations on the Lijiang - Shangri-la route, Nam found it easier to control the tourists because they were not too large and it was difficult to get lost. However, in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, he "still panics when thinking about it" because he saw people everywhere. The shuttle bus could hardly get close to the tourist attractions because it was jammed. The driver often stopped the car 1-2 km away and the tour guide had to lead the tourists to the tourist attractions on foot.
"For Vietnamese tourists, walking about 3 km round trip can make many people feel tired," Nam said.
The memory he remembers most is the trip to Shanghai in 2018 with a group of more than 20 guests. At the Thanh Hoang Temple, guests had one hour to explore freely. An hour past the meeting time, two guests, a middle-aged couple, did not have a Chinese phone SIM card to contact, and had not returned. Nam decided to let the local tour guide take the group to the restaurant first while he stayed behind to look for them. However, three more hours passed, and he still could not find the two guests. After asking for help from the local police, the two guests were found in a "pale, panicked" state.
Both said they sought help from the police. However, when police asked them to point to the national flag to identify their nationality, they refused to do so because they were "afraid of being arrested", making identification and search more difficult.
Nguyen Van Binh, a tour guide specializing in China tours for Trang An Travel, shares Hoai Nam's feelings about the crowds during Golden Week in China. He said the line of people waiting to enter the ticket gate at the train station can sometimes stretch up to 1 km.
Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang Ancient Town. Photo: Tripadvisor
Waiting and queuing for too long makes many tourists tired. In 2019, when a group of Vietnamese tourists visited Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (near the ancient city of Lijiang), a female member fainted while standing in line and had to be taken to the emergency room. This tourist had degenerative spine disease and could not stand for too long, but did not inform the tour guide about her health condition in advance.
"On normal days, waiting for the cable car to go up the snowy mountain doesn't take much time. However, during Golden Week, sometimes you have to wait more than 40 minutes," Binh said. The tour guide said that if customers notify in advance, he can ask security staff to assist and give them priority access to ensure their health.
Binh asserted that Golden Week tourism in China affects the experience of tourists. Tourist attractions are crowded, making "just taking photos difficult". This year, Binh's company will not organize tours to China during this time.
A travel agency said that Chinese authorities are strictly controlling group visa applications from Vietnam in October "as strictly as applying for Schengen or Japanese visas". Vietnamese tourist groups are likely to have 20-50% of their applications rejected, or even 100%.
"Generally I don't dare to lead tours these days anymore," Nam said.
Tu Nguyen
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