Hello Vy,
Sorry it has taken us a while to get this email to you.
Anyway, please rest assured that we have been singing your praises to all our friends because your arrangements for us never missed a beat and worked beautifully.
After arriving at our first hotel and meeting our first guide and driver, we never had any concerns whatsoever that anything could go amiss. You had our full trust.
As from our completed evaluations you can see we were very happy with all of our tours, accommodations, guides and drivers.

Hoi An was a peaceful stay after busy HCMC and we loved the quiet canal walking and cycling & Old Town areas. The Lantern Making was a nice surprise and we enjoyed the cooking lesson. And we did enjoy our boat visit to Cham Island, a bit of snorkelling, and lunch on the beach.
We thought that your arranging for us to have the compartment to ourselves on the train trip to Sa Pa was very thoughtful. It would have been very cramped if we'd had to share the space with two other travellers.
We had expected Sa Pa to be a smaller town, and were surprised at how busy the it was - on a weekend there were very large groups of tourists. It was good to experience walking the narrow lanes and fields past farms and workers into the smaller villages, and the scenery was gorgeous.
We tried many different snacks on our drive from Ha Noi to Ninh Binh and on to HaLong Bay which our guide shared with us. Our 2 nights cruise on Dragon Legend was wonderful - the food superb, the crew very welcoming and the towering rock/islands amazing.
After a very busy Ha Noi, we found Luang Prabang to be a wonderfully peaceful area where the pace of life slowed down for us. Despite being active each day, our time there felt restful, cruising along the delta, visiting elephants and visiting many Buddhist temples.
In Siem Reap we were busy visiting Wats/Temples but we were shown the differences which made them more individual. We enjoyed a quick swim in the pool at the end of each day, before strolling out to find another tempting supper to enjoy, and market areas to browse.
As you mentioned, the drive from Ho Chi Minh City to Mui Ne is at least four and a half hours and the traffic and road conditions make it less than relaxing. We guess there is no alternative other than to take a flight to some other beach area. The Cliff Resort in Mui Ne was very busy on the Saturday that we arrived and we found the restaurant with all the people that night to be quite noisy.
Having obtained our Viet Nam evisas in advance, this made things easier when going through the airport immigration. In fact, when we departed Siem Reap for Ho Chi Minh the first thing the airline rep there asked for was our Viet Nam visas. We wondered whether we would have been allowed on that flight without them?
We would have absolutely no hesitation in asking you to arrange any of our travel in SE Asia when we next visit.
With our sincere thanks,
John and Stella

JOHN group x2
Indochina Odyssey 29 Days

Hi Thao
We had an amazing holiday - we were so grateful for all your suggestions which worked out perfect. Happy to recommend your company - where do you suggest? Trip advisor?
We had a good four days in Singapore after Saigon (which we loved but my favourite is still Old Hanoi!) the last resort in Phu Quoc was fantastic. Flight home was long but good and we only took a day to recover!

We now think we may return in two years to attempt Vietnam central and go into Laos. Our sons have O level exams and so perhaps it’s a treat for family in 2020 or 2021. Definitely will contact you again.

Btw hotel in Can Tho was adorable!! We got Xmas presents from hotel - a scarf and two ties/cuff links for boys - how sweet!
The trips to coconut factories was great - my husband did so many photos for teaching his students (he does Agriculture and Law). We have been posting all photos on our Facebook for friends.

Thank you for everything and I hope you have a wonderful 2019. And as I said above - happy to recommend or write reviews for your website.

Best wishes
Uma

Mrs. Uma _ groupx3_Vietnam In Depth_12 Days

Hi Thao,

We leave Cambodia today, and I want to thank you again for a well-planned trip, and outstanding service while we travelled. Every guide was wonderful, every driver was prompt, courteous and skilled. The hotels were excellent, and yhe food was great. We could not have asked for a better trip.

We especially want to thank you for checking in with us along the way, and offering alternatives when the weather didn't cooperate. Your willingness to change our flights from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap, change hotels, and still have a driver meet us, all with less than 24 hours notice, was way above anything we could have expected.

We will definitely recommend you and your agency to everyone we know. Thank you again!

Indochina Expedition - 20 days -4 pax
Mrs. Eileen Hirsch _ groupx4_Indochina Expedition_20 Days

Eva & Henry Price - Thoughts on our 12 day “the Mysterious Tonkin of Vietnam”.

November 2018

Arranged by Jennifer

Booking- Email exchanges for booking worked well.  The promptness of Jennifer’s replies was much appreciated. 

Some difficulties & added expense with paying through our usual credit card facilities.

Planning -  Jennifer was very helpful.  We ended up with a” perfect trip for us”.  We had a good balance of great scenery, village life & simple accommodation to more sophisticated accommodation & dining.  Everything ran smoothly as planned. It was reassuring that Jennifer called us occasionally to check on our progress during the trip.

Driver-  Chung was always punctual, polite & helpful.  His driving was cautious & considerate on some very challenging roads.   He had a good rapport with Khue our guide, which meant his lack of English did not exclude him from conversations.

Guide – Khue was always enthusiastic & enterprising in terms of what he showed us. He was always punctual & organised. He was able to develop an instant rapport with locals at the various stops so that we were able to enjoy some unexpected moments with people going about their daily lives – sharing tea or rice wine, rice paper production, candy making, villagers preparing for a wedding.

In more complex contexts his English could become a little hard to understand but this was always compensated for by his energy & enthusiasm.

Accommodation& meals – Standards varied.  Our two homes stays were very good in terms of accommodation & meals.

Our first room at the Noble Boutique hotel was cramped but the room on the 20^th   Nov was much more comfortable.

La Vien was very good.

Duc Tai Local Hotel was tired & a little dusty.  Breakfast was simple.

Hoa Cuong in Dong Van – room was very good.  Breakfast was very simple& spartan.

Tam Coc Ricefield Resort Bungalow was great but resort was too far out of village & difficult to get transport to & from.   Restaurant was underutilised & quality of food was ordinary.

Moon Garden experience couldn’t be faulted.

At our lunch stops along the way, Khue did a great job in introducing us to a variety of local foods we would never have dared order or try.  We thank him for that.

We hope this feedback helps with future planning.

We are very pleased with our Tonkin Travel experience & will not hesitate to recommend them to our friends.

Bill & Eva group x2
The Mysterious Tonkin Of Vietnam 12 Days

Hi Vy,

I'm more than happy to give you feedback on the holiday.

As you've already seen from my Faccebook posts we had a fantastic time. The holiday was absolutely brilliant and we absolutely loved every minute of it. It really is very difficult to find anything that I could find fault with, but obviously there were some parts that we enjoyed more than others. But the overall quality of everything was first class. The guides we had all spoke excellent English, were very knowledgeable, very enthusiastic and made us feel very welcome. I'd have no hesitation in recommending any of the guides, they were all very professional. Our favourite guide was Linh but that doesn't mean we didn't like the other guides too. All of the drivers we had made us feel very safe in the traffic, were very safe drivers, and again all made us feel very welcome. Our favourite driver was Dee who we had in Siem Reap. All of our arrivals at the airports went very smoothly with the driver / guide very easy to spot and very welcoming.

All of the hotels we stayed in were excellent. If I had to try and find any areas for improvements I could identify a few things but they are very minor :-

In Hanoi the bedside light obviously had an electrical problem of some sort and kept flickering / going out. And there didn't seem to be hot water all the time with several of the showers we had being on the cold side. But the hotel was in a great location in the old part of town.

On the boat in Ha Long we took our full suit cases with us. In retrospect we should have taken an overnight bag with us with just a change of clothes in and, if possible, have left our big cases in the vehicle overnight. Not sure if this would have been an option but, if so, it could have been made clearer.

The hotel in Siem Reap was our overall favourite although Caroline found the bed a bit on the hard side. The staff were very polite and courteous and were very helpful and attentive.

At all of the hotels I found the pillows to be too high. It's probably what I'm used to in the UK but I found it quite difficult to sleep for a few nights until I got used to the pillows. Smaller pillows would have been more to my liking.

The food at all of the hotels was excellent, although the only hotel that we ate a meal other than breakfast was in Siem Reap. All the restaurants that the guides took us to for lunch were superb.

We enjoyed all the trips and activities we went on. it's difficult to pick a favourite activity but the street food tour and the Cu Chi trip were probably my favourites, and Caroline really enjoyed the rowing boat trip to the fishing village in Ha Long. The cooking class in Hoi An was enjoyable but the cooking class at Cu Chi was much better and far more enjoyable. The trip to the floating village at Ton Le was probably the least enjoyable of all the trips and neither of us found it particularly interesting. but the trips to the temples more than made up for this - they were amazing.

I can't choose a favourite city that we stayed in because they were all different and had different things to offer. There wasn't anywhere we went that I wouldn't recommend to anyone else who was going on the same holiday. 

It was also really nice to meet you in Hanoi. You made us both feel very welcome indeed.

In summary I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tonkin Voyage Travel, Vietnam or Cambodia to anyone who was thinking of having a similar holiday. And I'd certainly consider using Tonkin Voyage Travel again for some of your other destinations like Myanmar or Thailand. I'm happy to discuss further if you want any more detailed feedback on any aspect of the holiday.

Thanks again for a fantastic holiday.

Julian

Julian & Caroline group x2
Essence of Vietnam & Cambodia 17 Days