Mark Mulder
Reflections

We have just returned from Vietnam and had a wonderful time. We spent five days in HCMC and five in Hanoi. The sights, sounds and smells were a great experience. Many thanks to TNK travel and Mr Vu who helped organise the Halong Bay 2 day/1 night cruise. They also organised accomodation, at a price way cheaper then what we could manage.

Again, many thanks,and we would recommend TNK to anyone.

Arnaldo Matute
comments about our tailor made trip to Vietnam by tnk travel

Hi all

I write you just to comment our recent trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

On Vietnam´s two legs of the trip, we asked tnk travel to organize for us some smaller trips : Mekong delta 2 days, out to Cambodia, Sapa 2 days, halong bay, and also little things like "we need a Hanoi - Hue train ticket".

We combined all of this with our self-made own itinerary, and all worked fine, except halong bay (but for bad weather), and even then, they promtply called us and they looked for alternatives for us.

Even saying we normally prefer to travel by ourselves, we found Tnk travel very helpfull and usefull for us

Thanks a lot

Steve and Jackie LaPlante
Vietnam package tour ( Dec 13th 2008 )

Hello Mr Danh and Mr Trinh
 
Just a short note to let you know that we are now safely back in Seoul after an extremely enjoyable, fascinating and relaxing 10 day tour of Vietnam.  The tour package exceeded our expectations in all respects: the guides were great, the accommodations were excellent, the tours fascinating (and the diving in Nha Trang was very good as well).
 
I would recommend this tour and TNK Travel to my colleagues without hesitation.
 
Thanks for your great work with this- I expect we will come back to Vietnam again soon.

Most sincerely- Steve LaPlante.

Anne and Jonathan
Stern Itinerary March

Dear Hang,

This is just a short note to thank you for all the effort you put into making our trip to Vietnam enjoyable. We were all most impressed with the efficiency of the transport arrangements, the friendliness of the guides and the helpfulness of the hotel staff where ever we stayed.The whole trip went very
efficiently and we must commend you highly. We loved Vietnam.The staff at the hotel in Hanoi were fantastic and I would highly recommend it.I did think that it may be helpful for you to know about the only 2 things that may have been able to be avoided:
1. The hotel at Hoi An (the Hoi An Hotel) was very big and very noisy as a result of the many tour groups that were staying there. We were given a room in the downstairs foyer, with the rubbish collection area outside our window and found this room very noisy through out the night. Also the bathrooms have limited hot water facilities, permitting only one very small bath to be run before the hot water runs out. Despite the fact that the room itself was nice, and the staff and food good, I would not chose to stay there again.
2. Another suggestion is that if people wish to visit Sapa, and stay in a home stay, accommodation in the home stay should not be arranged for the first night, as the train trip is very noisy and bumpy so that one doesn’t get much sleep. Our itinerary planned that on arrival in Sapa we should go to our proposed hotel to have breakfast and a shower. This would have been nice. But this didn’t happen as we were not staying at the hotel that night, and were not given the choice by the guide. Instead we were taken to a restaurant for 2-3 hours, before starting on our tour of the villages. We were not at all happy about sitting in a restaurant for 3 hours as we were all cold, tired and dirty. The weather was unfortunately awful – freezing cold. Obviously the weather could not be foreseen when we planned the itinerary, but the icy weather didn’t help things. I think that the guide should have contacted you for your suggestions when he realised how bad the weather would be.
I hope that you find these suggestions helpful. Despite the bad weather in the north with your help we had a lovely trip and really appreciated your efforts to put the Halong Bay disappointment right.
We will definitely be travelling with you again if we decide to revisit Asia, and will be recommending your company (and you) to friends who wish to visit your area.

Thank you again.
Regards

Deirdre Kriz
feedback on our trip

We were in Vietnam for 2 weeks and had TNK travel organize our accommodation and tours for us. From the very start everything went like clockwork. The guides and drivers they provided for us were very friendly and well informed. Not once were we ever late for a plane or boat, which there was many of both. They made our holiday to Vietnam very stress free and most enjoyable. I would reccommend this company to all I know who will be travelling to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The trip was perfect.

Linda Masters
Vietnam & Siem Riep

Dear Hang!

Pat & I want to say thankyou for your excellent organisation of our trip. We enjoyed it enormously.

Very best regards

Linda & Pat Masters

Carolyn Lewis
Dear Mr Dzung Trinh

I am writing to thank you for organizing our wonderful Mekong Delta tour to Phnom Penh.
(Lewis group..Sept 29th/30th/1st Oct.)

We very much appreciated our tour guide Mr Pham Van Hai and our driver Duc.
Hai's English was very good and we enjoyed all the informative snippets of information he had to share.
His knowledge of the areas that we travelled through was extensive and we enjoyed finding out many things about Vietnam
We came away with a better understanding of life in Vietnam and life on the Mekong.
Hai answered many of our questions and we thoroughly enjoyed his sense of humour.

We would all happily recommend Hai as a guide.

I wonder if you could let Hai know that we have written to thank him.

Kind regards

Susan Cook
Thank you from Canada

Hello Ms. Luu Vo,

Our holiday would not have been possible without all your help in organizing our customized tour and by staying in touch via email with myself and my Australian friend with all your prompt details and assistance prior to our trip. Also, for personal and telephone contact during our holiday in Vietnam. You and your co-workers showed us that you are more than qualified to handle any situation that would arise for an international traveller.

Thank you Ms. Luu Vo, Ms. Kim Cuong, Mr. Quach Trong Thang, tour guides and drivers for opening the doors to the wonderful people in your beautiful country. I arrived home two days ago with fond memories, lots of photos and a life-changing experience.

We would like to acknowledge Mr. Quach Trong Thang as our number one tour guide in Vietnam. His command of the english language together with his thoughtful, personal and insightful little extras made our visit to Saigon, HCMC, Mekong Delta, DaLat and NTrang so pleasurable. He educated us, chased butterflies with our digital camera, treated us to coconut milk, coffee, persimmons, took photos, chose special menus, walked with us into a coffee plantation, showed us where to buy pumpkin seeds, took us to historical and religious sites, introduced us to the culture of the people through the markets and home based businesses, advised where to get a wonderful foot massage, while all the time paying attention to all our needs, including follow-up with long distance calls. I would recommend him without hesitation.

At the time of the flood in the central highlands we were so impressed with Ms. Kim Cuong s efficient and expedient assistance in changing flights and hotels. We would not have had this prompt service had we booked our tour from our home countries. Our hats off to you for providing this type of customer service to international travellers. The welcome signs and transfers to and from airports made our travel so much easier.

I would like to make mention of two other tour guides that stood above the rest. Mr. Co in Danang, was so patient and understanding and had a wonderful sense of humour. His personality shone. In spite of the flood and the re-arrangements he was totally available and supportive to us and put us at ease. Another guide, Mr. Do Xuan Hoa in Hanoi was also well spoken and an experienced tour guide. He took us to Halong Bay and tried to find a shower for us in the wee hours of the morning, bought us some fresh bread, took us kayaking and introduced us to many aspects of northern Vietnam with ease, grace and understanding. He is certainly the one to lead anyone on a trek or camping trip into Sapa with his years of experience with the northern tribes in the mountains.

The driver from Dalat to NTrang was very skilled and adept at handling the mountainous, muddy route with ease and professionalism. His name escapes me. The other drivers are to be credited for handling the many weather changes and surrounding bikes.

The three-star hotels you booked throughout the country were all better than expected except for the one in Sapa which I would suggest you remove from your list. It would hardly measure a zero star. You may wish to check out a new one named Chapas which we viewed. We understood the need for the hotel in Danang with the floods. The staff at that hotel were exceptional with their help. However, their hotel would not be in the same three-star category as all of the others. Most of the staff at all of the hotels were welcoming, helpful and accommodating.

To all of you, I would like to thank you for the wonderful customer service which you provided on our first visit to Vietnam. It is the biggest asset to your company.

I will happily recommend you and your staff and the above mentioned tour guides to any Canadian who plans to visit your country.

Kind regards and hugs,

Susan Cook
Box 127
Wynndel, British Columbia
Canada
V0B 2N0

The Kane family
A wonderful experience with TNK travel (January 2009)

Our family of 4 just came back from first ever trip to Vietnam (18 days). We chose TNK Travel and it was a great trip. I wanted to thank TNK and to share our experience with future prospective travelers.

We started the planning almost a year ago. I must say we were hesitant at first and concerned about choosing a reliable travel agency. I read a lot on the internet (e.g. tripadvisor .com) before identifying a few prospective travel agencies. I then asked for an initial quote from my top 3 choices. TNK was the middle quote but what I liked about them was the level of detail in their initial proposal. I then looked at their guestbook and selected 17 people worldwide who recently travelled with them and emailed each of them to ask about their experience. Every single one of them responded and all were very positive about TNK. This made me comfortable with the idea of having to send money upfront to book a trip in an unknown country where I would have no recourse if dealing with an unethical company. With TNK, everyone assured me that once an itinerary is finalized, the company will do whatever is needed to deliver on its promises and to make it a pleasant experience, and they sure did in our case.

Over the following month, I exchanged several emails with Mr. Dsung Trinh, the Managing Director, to modify the original proposal based on my research about the sites we wanted to see. For example, we removed Sapa from the itinerary because the Northwest is quite cold in January, but added Phu Quoc Island instead. In the end, we agreed on a price for the revised itinerary, and I paid the customary 30% deposit by credit card (with a 3% fee). From that point-on, I dealt with Mr. Dac Dahn in their operations department who always promptly answered my numerous enquiries via email, and sent me hotel vouchers and e-tickets confirmation from air travel within Vietnam, as well as the invitation letter for the Visa. Fast forwarding to the end of the year when our trip began:

We landed roughly on schedule in Hochiminh on Dec. 31st in the evening and had to wait an hour or so (not ideal after a long flight from the U.S.) to get our visa on arrival ($25 per person in cash). Once we exited immigration and customs, our guide (J.J.) and driver were there to greet us with a sign bearing our name. They took us to our hotel. Because of the traffic, we ended up being in the center of the city near the cathedral at midnight, surrounded by thousands of motorcycles ringing their horns when the near year arrived (quite a cultural experience). From there on, the entire trip was very pleasant (I will post details on the hotels on tripadvisor.com). We visited Saigon (and stopped by the TNK office to pay the balance of the trip), the Mekong Delta, Phu Quoc, PanThiet/Mui Ne, Da Lat and Nha Trang by private van and boats with J.J. (who was excellent, paying attention all the time to what we liked and making sure we would always have it). We almost missed the speedboat from Rach Gia to Phu Quoc, because the itinerary was 30 minutes off. As a result, we couldn’t have a scheduled lunch, but TNK compensated us with an excellent previously unplanned dinner in Hue. J.J. ordered a van with more legroom when we returned from Phu Quoc to HCMC (we flew back), arranged for a small canoe to pick-us up and take us to our hotel in Cantho where we were stuck in traffic on the way to the ferry, etc…Then we flew to Danang and were greeted by our new guide Tui (Mr. Dac Dahn had kindly arranged for French speaking guides at the other locations at our request), and from there visited Hoi An, My Son and Hue, Tui was excellent as well, very knowledgeable and helped us solve an issue we had with a tailor-made suit. In Hoi An, the reservation was not a river view room, but after contacting Mr. Dac Dahn generously agreed to pay the difference and we were upgraded accordingly (we had insisted on 2 deluxe rooms with sea/river/lake views everywhere) and I had not noticed it was not the case at that location. We then flew to Hanoi which we visited with our last guide (Mr. Lan, who was OK but not as good as the first 2), and went from there to Halong Bay for a memorable 2-day cruise, then flew back to HCMC, stayed overnight near the airport and had an early morning flight back to the U.S. On returning to HCMC, no driver was there to greet us, we were told after we called the agency that he was stuck in traffic due to an accident. We took a taxi to the nearby hotel, and the driver who picked-us up in the morning for our return flight to the US. reimbursed us more than we had actually paid for the taxi. We didn’t have to pay a departure tax, it was apparently already included in our plane tickets.

Overall, a great trip thanks to the logistics, efficiency and professionalism of the TNK staff and agents. Food was excellent (though too copious for us, we always have festive lunch menus booked by TNK with 6 or 7 courses in nice restaurants (included in the price), nice buffet breakfasts in most hotels. The only problem (which is beyond TNK’s control) was insufficient hot water in many hotels for two people to take showers one after the other), a really bad road with big holes when exiting MuiNe to go to Da Lat and a third guide in the north who took us to a number of expensive stores along the road when we saw much cheaper prices elsewhere (we suspect he had a kick-back from these stores (but to his credit, he advised us to see the anthropology museum in Hanoi instead of a couple of extra pagodas, which we really enjoyed). Other than these minor opportunities for improvement, we had great hotel rooms with very nice views (important to us), good weather, good food, good guides and drivers (who seemed satisfied with the tips we gave them), and we were taken to all the places agreed-to on the itinerary. For those who do not feel adventurous enough to be on their own in Vietnam, we do strongly recommend TNK travel as an ideal, reasonably-priced solution. You can count on them for a memorable and pleasant trip. One final comment, although you can pay everything in Vietnam in US dollars or Euros, prices are cheaper if you pay in Dongs (local currency, FX at 17.3 VND/USD on the average during our trip, calculated at 15 by the stores if you pay in USD). Also a word of caution, Vietnam Airlines only allows 20 kg for a checked suitcase and 7 kg for a carry-on so travel light……

If you are thinking of going and have any question about our experience, don’t hesitate to contact me at dkane@mmm.com.

Our sincere thanks to MM. Trinh, Danh and the entire TNK staff for a wonderful trip. The Kane family (Austin, TX, USA)

peter wells
Thanking Dat

Hi Dat, Hope biz. is booming. We ve recommended lots of friends here to contact TNK and Guide Dat.

We enjoyed our holiday in your lovely country. Be careful on your busy roads - we will never forget our
enlightening experience of Vietnam with you.

Cheers and thanks from Ozzie mates Heather & Peter Wells