Peter C
An enjoyable experience

Dear TNK,

An email to thank you for your service and for a great tour of the Mekong Delta.

I am a tour leader with 10 years experience in South East Asia, I can say honestly that your operations management and performance are excellent. Your guides are great and personable even with the massive turn-arounds throughout the tour. I was very impressed.

I hadn't booked with your organisation and randomly chose Brothers. When we switched buses at the Bonsai display place Ms Nhi became our chaperone and guide. She is a great asset to your company and was able to manage the chaos in the travellers minds easily, pleasantly assertive and welcoming. Ms Nhi is extremely competent.

I hope that with the inevitable economic pressures descending on us at this time that TNK can hold their prices. Everyone I spoke to on the tour commented on the value for money and the efficiency of movement.

Well done TNK and certainly Miss Nhi.

Yours gratefully,

Peter Cochrane

Cameron Wray
Dear sir

I was recently a customer of yours while in Saigon, I would like to pass on my remarks on your tour guide,(mr Hai) he was excellant, My parents and I enjoyed his company and knowledge immensly, I have since recommended your company and mr Hai to a number of people and will continue to do so, Thanks again for a great holiday in your beautiful country. I look forward to a return there one day.

Cameron Wray

Liz Lalor
Excellent Service

My husband & I have just returned from a trip to Vietnam & Australia.

I came across TNK via the www and booked my internal flights, taxis, and accommodation around Vietnam with this company. I am pleased to say our trip went very well and TNK delivered all it promised.

I found the company easy to communicate with and very efficient.

I plan to return to Vietnam next year and will use TNK again...thanks!

David Murray
Dear Dzung

Dear Dzung, Just a short note to thank you for the excellent trip you arranged for us during November of this year. All guides were excellent and the service your company provided was of the top order. Our only criticsm would be that some of the hotels provide standard, rather than superior rooms. On our next trip to your delightful country we will most definately call on your services but will use 4 star hotels. We will also recommend your agency to our many friends who I'm sure will be heading to Vietnam over the next few years.

B. de Vet
Dear Mr Dzung Trinh,

First of all we want to thank TNK travel very much for the great Tour we have had.

Everything was perfectly arranged and the Hotels, drivers and guides were great.

You are a very serious and reliable organisation and we will certainly recommend you to our friends and relatives.

We have now a very good impression of your country thanks to all the places you made us visit with all the information given by the guides.

One little notice: your man in Hanoi (or is that you??) told us that he did not have the information about our arrival flight and that he had asked us by mail and phone. But as you can see I had already given that information in my mail from April 15 (see under). But.... no problem our guide was waiting for us at the airport.

Thanks again we had lovely and interesting holidays and all the included meals were delicious.

Best regards

Bas and Martina de Vet (- van Deurzen)
Bachrode 3
2717AL Zoetermeer
The Netherlands

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)

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

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

matthew smith
mekong delta tour

My friend and I went on the three day Mekong delta tour to Phenom Phen mid July, we really enjoyed it.

We were impressed by the itinery of the trip, we really fit a lot into the time we had- a lot of early mornings!

Our tour guide JJ spoke good English and was from the area so could tell us a lot about the culture.

JJ was also very helpful; i left my bag, on a bus we had used, which was heading back to Saigon!- i was heading to Cambodia! I told JJ and he organised the contents to be shipped to Singapore where i was finishing my trip.

I am now back in Singapore and have recieved my bag, really saved me a lot of time and hassel!

I would recommend TNK travel to all, great staff, great value!

kete gocedenio
Thank you for a wonderful experince with my family

Hi Dzung Trinh,

As a photographer, I have been travelling South East Asia for 17 years. I have been to vietnam many many times. However this was the highest rating I can ever give to a Vietnam tour operator. I would give a Double A for satifaction index. Worth mentioning is Luc, the tour guide with us to Sapa. Although new in the guide tour business, he really take time to see that we are taken cared of. He eat only when he sees we are well seated. Prompt and courteous, he is always there when needed. The hotel staff in Hanoi are also great. Very courteous and accommodating.

I would like to say that the pinnacle of our journey is the surprise New Year's dinner in a cave in Halong bay. We were all taken aback with the setting, live musician, candle light dinner. It is simply magica. The 7 piece acoustic band played really well ( I was a sound engineer in London )

I am glad the tour turned out extremely well because I have hesitant in the beginning as I don't know your company. Definitely I will recommend your company to our friends.

Once again, thank you for a wonderful experince with my family.

Regards,

Kete Go Cedenio