John Kellas
Mai Chau 4 day trek

We used TNK Travel for 16 day tour in 2008 and have now moved to Hanoi for a year and use their local affiliate, Dream Travel in Hanoi. We arranged to do the 4D/3N trek from Po Co/Hang Kia to Mai Chau over New Year. While the weather was cloudy and we missed the spectacular sights, we did enjoy the exercise. We had a local Guide/Cook, Miss Phuong, and a Hanoi guide, Quyen, with Mr Son doing the luggage transfers. We had 3 homestays and Phuong showed her culinary skills to perfection, different dishes each lunch and dinner, at each one.
We seemed to meet most of Phuong's family through the course of the 4 days, which we enjoyed. Homestays were satisfactory and trekkers will find them acceptable. Village life is simple and basic and one hears all the animals day and night, so expect the roosters to crow early and often.
We will suggest to our own future visitors that we do some more treks or stay at Mai Chau.

Thanks to Danh (TNK) and Ngoc Anh and Trang (Dream Travel).
JDK
PS Ask for Phuong and Quyen as guides

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)

Kevin Mansfield
Dear Dzung.

Thank you for a very successful tour. The clients were very satisfied ! Mr Ky was excellent as was his assistant, Khan(?). The transport, accommodation, and the food provided was very good. Your staff support was outstanding and the organisation of the various stages went smoothly; a testament TNK travel.

I would like to change a few aspects of the itinerary for our proposed tours for next year. I will forward some ideas at a later stage.

We are currently determining our dates for next year and will let you know as soon as possible.

Sorry we missed catching up for a drink.

Kind Regards,

Kevin

Kevin Mansfield

Getaway Trekking

Alison Dolphin
Train booking: HA NOI - DA NANG (Jun)/ Mr. Will Dolphin

Dear Miss Hang!

I write to thank you for your very considerable help in organising our schedule in Vietnam. The Hotels were excellent and all the travel arrangements worked like clockwork.

You were very kind and helpful when dealing with our many emails.

We shall certainly use your company again when we next travel to your beautiful country and in the meantime will recommend your services to anyone else travelling there.

Many thanks and best regards,

Alison Dolphin

Kay Mackie
Mekong Delta Tour

Good afternoon

I am wrtiting to express my thanks to your company and especially to our tour guide, Phi, for a great 6 days in the Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc Island.

The tour was informative, extensive and met our requirements. We enjoyed the time we spent with Phi and the driver, who was very careful and competent. Phi's knowledge and humour really made our tour and we would not hesitate to recommend it to others.

Best wishes

Kay

Dirk Ameer
Thanks so much !! (Viet Nam package tour Ameer)

Dear Ms Luu Vo,

we are back from Vietnam now and I would like to let you know that you and your colleagues planned one of the nicest holiday for us we ever had. We enjoyed so much Vietnam and all the friendly people and fantastic places in your wonderful country. A special thank you we wanted to say to our three tour guides. All were exceptionally friendly and helpful and provided us with a lot of useful information.

The mixture of beach, culture, city life, nature and history was fantastic and we have the feeling we learned a lot about Vietnam in just 3 weeks.

We would like to let you now that especially Eden Resort on Phu Quoc and Life Resort in Da Nang were really nice hotels. Last one with exceptional good food. We were unhappy just with just one hotel, Hoi An hotel. It is very noisy, we didn`t sleep two nights. There is a big construction going on, so also during day you cannot stay there. We recommend not to book it for other guest.

We will come back to Vietnam for sure again.

Two friend of us, Attila and Bernadette from Hungary with their parents will come to Vietnam shortly. We had a great evening last Sathurday when we showed them hundreds of Vietnam photos. They asked for your contact data and they will mail you short term. Please help them as much as you helped us.

Thanks so much and best regards,

Dirk, Kim, Fabian, Finn and Hannah Ameer

Karen Vermey
Hello

Hello

I would like to thank you for the excellent service we received from your company on our trip to Vietnam. I also wish to thank Mr Huy for his service, local knowledge, willingness to please and for going out of his way to show us the beauty of Vietnam. We have enjoyed our time in Vietnam so much we are already looking into coming back. We credit the wonderful experience in Vietnam to Mr Huy because without him we would not have seen, understood or enjoyed our time in Ho Chi minh any where near as much. Again Thank you and we will be using your company whenever we travel to Vietnam.

Regards Karen Vermey
 

Anna Connery
Thanks

Dear Dzung Trinh

We have returned from our very enjoyable tour of Vietnam and I wanted to thank you for your assistance with our arrangements. All went very smoothly and all the people who helped us were very nice.

The hotels were all good with the exception of Hai Phong Hotel which was not very clean.

We changed to the Hoi An Beach Resort (instead of the Glory Hotel) before leaving HCMC and we really enjoyed that.

Thank you again for your help. I will recommend you to my friends.

Kind Regards

Anna Connery

Paola & Renato
Viet Nam package tour

Dear Ms. Luu Vo,

we are now back in Italy and we took with us very nice memories of Vietnam.
We are very satisfied with the service your agency offered to us during the tour: very good guides, confortable cars, water at our disposal.
Just to help you to offer a better service to your future clients and travellers, we wish to submit you our comments for 2 things that could be improved:

1. the Halong Bay cruise with Paloma: they just showed us two of the many attractions of the bay: one cave and Ti Top Island. We expected to see something more, otherwise we could have seen the same things on a daily trip, without spending the night on the boat.

2. Cuu Long Resort in Phu Quoc: the hotel is very old and not well mantained. The service is poor, the food is expensive for the quality offered, the staff hardly understands English.
Next time, be sure that your clients are aware of what this resort has to offer. Maybe we would have spent a better time in Mui Ne.

Please, don't take this comments as a claim: we are really happy of the overall quality of your package tour and this comments are just to let you know our last feed back.

Kind regards
Paola & Renato

Kerry Mowett
Viet nam - Southern package tour

Dear Luu Vo

Thankyou for your organisation of our groups visit to Ho Chi Min city.

Everything was organised and went smoothly. The meals were amazing and of a very high standard.

Thankyou for the wonderful tour guides Binh and Lyang who were helpful and informative.

Your drivers and bus assistants were pleasant and patient with our group.

I am now planning another group tour in July 2011 for a group of 40 (39 pax plus Tour Leader).

The tour group will arrive in HCM City on Saturday 2 July and return to Australia on Sunday 10 July 2011

I have looked on your website and like the ideas in Vietnam Highlights tour commencing in Ho Chi Min City and ending in Hanoi.

Accommodation in standard 2 star hotels will be acceptable.

Could you please prepare a suggested tour outline and cost for my consideration.

Thankyou

Kerry Mowett