MOST visitors disgorged by the trains stopping at Hue make a beeline for the Perfume River, but few encounter river dwellers like Mr Nguyen Van Chic.

The 42-year-old man makes a living dredging construction sand from the river bed, living and working off a boat anchored half a kilometre from the citadel of the former Vietnamese capital.

Dredgers say the authorities keep them away from the tourist sights to avoid sullying the genteel image of Hue.

The work is backbreaking - he drags giant steel scoops along the river bed until they are filled with sand, usually a load of about 40kg each time. This is then slowly hauled to the water's surface with a manual pulley, then piled onto a wooden boat.

It takes about two hours for him and his family to collect one boat-load of sand that will earn him 100,000 dong (S$8.50). A middleman then sells it to building contractors.

Mr Nguyen used to fish for a living but switched to dredging sand when overfishing eroded his income. As a dredger, he has been able to save enough to buy a houseboat and a television.

The price he gets for sand has risen just 10 per cent over five years, despite the cost of housing and construction materials in Vietnam rising 23 per cent last year. Still, more fishermen in Hue are switching to dredging sand these days, he says.