TESTIMONIALS - ETHNIC TRAVEL VIETNAM

Hello Bich. We're back in Milano with our heads full of memories, wonderful experiences. Thanks to you also that by your excellent organization of this tour we have been able to love your country. Also participated in the success of all players this trip guides: Long and Tu guide improvised nha trang, then Luan who had the tough task on the last day to take us back to the airport to fly to Italy, and also very careful drivers, the buses are very comfortable, the accuracy of the appointment, and were very punctual, very clean hotels, restaurants all as good and varied. I would return, just two words on the incident at the restaurant imperial Hue, and we all enjoyed your honesty. This is also why we will recommend your agency to friends who want to visit Vietnam, and us also with our friends because we have decided to return to visit the north. Again, congratulations and thank you for everything you did and the hats that were very useful especially in the rain! My friends join me in sending you and say hello.
Roberta Carni and friends from Italy

We came back very excited about this trip to Vietnam and Cambodia was our first trip organized, and we had some concerns about the daily experiences as a group! But what human experience warm! We can say that all tours and excursions are very interesting (and what a great idea of distributing a pamphlet explaining everyday places, to add in our logbook provided the first day), always with the desire to seek out this little addition standard tourist routes, but gives us a much better idea of what the habits and customs of the country what about exceptional and friendly escorts and local guides always excited to answer our many questions and provide accurate and timely logistics! Over all the surprises organized throughout the trip we also make it very dynamic! Bravo then we return the head and heart full of images (think of Halong Bay, the pedicabs in full dense traffic, impressive pagodas, the courage of workers in the rice fields, forbidden citadel, the Mekong Delta , Angkor-Wat, young artisans at work ... so much to say!!
Cheers
Elano F Domingos (Portugal)

Here are some of my impressions of the beautiful journey in Asia: Vietnam & Cambodia. Firstly, I have more than a strong point for this trip.
First, in Hanoi, the walkabout we made with the population by the turn of pedicabs, which allowed us to circulate it.
Secondly, the cruise in Halong Bay, you can sleep on board, among all these islands of the South China Sea, and admire the stars on the deck of the junk was a pleasure!
Third, have the possibility to take various means of transport such as trains, sampans, junks, speed boat and tuk-tuk. All these methods are a way for us to discover the beauty that we offer these two countries.
Fourth, despite the 3 comments quoted above, if we had not had a guide to the height, all seem pale and uninteresting at times, which did not happen because we had a guide in Vietnam who able to make us know all the facets of his country and meet our thousand questions. He has not counted his hours to get all kinds of services. Guides of Cambodia and Thailand and beyond were excellent too!
Fifth ... Ha! Meals, what to say! Despite the rice, we had a variety of dishes at each meal were all very good but for me it was lunch with all the exotic fruits. I'm not a tea drinker but I admit it was very good, but coffee is something different because it is excellent and although he finished a meal, but to begin the meal, what better than cold beer after a visit, and they are very good.
I will conclude by writing this: this circuit has been achieved in a very professional way as we see the choice of hotels, sites visited, means of transport and restaurants. Everything has been carefully chosen and carefully. For all these reasons I consider myself lucky to be able to travel with a good group that has a taste for traveling well.

Hello Phong
Well we are now home and rested so firstly I would like to thank you for your very professional tour of Vietnam. We enjoyed many things that we did not expect. The length of the tour was just right and with a small break in Hoi An it was most enjoyable. We were so lucky that we did not have any rain to affect our tour. The accommodation was very good everywhere and I don't have any negative comments to make on it. It was all very clean and the service from the hotels was excellent and the breakfasts were extremely good.

We were also very happy with the guides that you provided for us. Each was a little different and their expertise on Vietnam was remarkable, so we learned a lot from them. The motor bike tour with Tam was very nice and I am glad we did this. It was also nice for you to provide a comedian for that trip. Tam is very funny. We had a beautiful vegetarian meal at the Orphanage.

Dung showed us around Hanoi and gave a very good account of the city. In Sappa with Ging, we had a wonderful walk through the villages for about 6km. This was very interesting. Of course we understand that everyone would like us to buy something, so we did our best. Sappa itself was very interesting indeed and a very nice place. A lot of building is going on there at the moment.

The cruise on Halong Bay was just lovely, maybe we should have had two days instead of one. The food was great and the tour guide Fleur was excellent. My bed on the boat was a little hard for my bad back so Fleur helped me put another mattress on the bed to look after my back. It was fun to do Tai Chi on the boat deck at 6.30am. I think I need more practice.
The flights between cities went quite well however there was on cancelled flight from Hanoi that we didn't know about but luckily there was a new flight in half an hour so no problem.

We had a great 3hour drive from Hoi An to Hue very impressive coastline, mountains past China Beach. Hue is also a very nice city.

Ho Chi Min city is different to Hanoi and we enjoyed it very much. Han our guide is a very passionate person and provided us with a lovely time in Ho Chi Min city and the MekongDelta. Great surprises on this part of the tour with a small boat cruise and a bicycle ride as well. The Homestay in the Mekong Delta area was a highlight as we also took part in preparing the meals for the evening. A great experience.The additional meals we had along the way was also a surprise so now we love all Vietnamese food.
I can only say that everything went to plan so well and we enjoyed ourselves immensley. The transport drivers were experts and always there on time.
Our friends Willem & Marie-Louise were delayed when leaving Ho Chi Min City due to a storm.

We certainly have a great story to tell our friends and family about Vietnam so If we decide to come back to Vietnam I'm going to call you. I will certainly recommend your company to all I know who intend to travel to Vietnam.

Again thank you for your fantastic tour. Oh yes and we did find the A25 quite easy!
Nice to see you on FB

Thank you for the pictures.

Regards

Stuart & Eve Richards from United Kingdom

Dear Loan
Thank you for your kind mail and interest in our trip.
Our holidays have been very pleasant and we have made many new friends along the way.
The pick up by local guides worked perfectly, they were all very knowledgeable and kind.
The program suited us well.
Hanoi was a nice start, Halong bay could have lasted another day, quite and fabulous kitchen.
Sapa village was very much a building site, construction works and a lot of mud, but its surroundings and the hiking in the mountains really worthwhile.
Our compliments for arranging the A25 hotel after the night train. Thoughtful!
Hoi An resort is very nice, it's a shame that the beaches cannot be used due to sandbags.
Then Asia hotel in Hue, we had a large room, but not very clean. Dust and sand all over and light switches very filthy.
Made a remark to the manager when we left, hopefully taken care of.
You were very right about the motorbikes, we thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the experienced drivers.
Saigon is pleasant stay, although quite warm for Dutch people!
Interesting ride to homestay, many activities on the way, eg visiting lovely,very friendly local family, cooking, cycling were topics, our local guide Han shared a lot of knowledge and had a great program.
We could have stayed another day at the homestay.
On the way back we could have skipped Cai be floating market, disappointing, but Han made it worthwhile by visiting some other production places. Would it have been better to enter deeper into Mekong area to visit a proper floating market with small boats carrying fruit etc?
All in all we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in your beautiful country and thank you for arranging a perfect trip and super local guides!
Willem and I are interested in returning to your country some day to play golf as we noticed many nice
Golfcourses.
Would you happen to have any suggestions on that matter in the Hanoi area or Hoi An area?
Thank you for informing us.
Greetings from 8'C cold Holland.
Willem and Marie-Louise from the Netherlands

Dear Phong
Thank you so much for your kind mail.
We are absolute embarrassed that we have not sent you any feedback!

We have been very satisfied with the trip, absolutely value for the money - and VERY satisfied especially with the perfect logistics, we admired and felt safe:
Never late one minute, always a kind driver, a knowledgeable guide in a sparkling car on the minute or before - and driving safely through the congested cities of Hanoi and Saigon to the airports or train station without any delay.. we were impressed!

As a small ´private guest group´ (2 people) we were treated as royalty from day one, fast-track at the sights and lengthy talks of other than sights like everyday life - and at every hotel, we were expected, helped, hardly touched our suitcases. Do continue to remind people to repack their luggage to a small carrier bag (no wheels etc. on board the days in the Ha Long, too much of a nuisance) and do keep up the number of days in the bays. The first day seemed absolutely crowded with boats and tourists – it is all very calm and regulated and we had a nice room and get together with people on board – but it does not represent the area very well. We enjoyed the day at Cat Island very much and the round trip with the ferry. Very illustrating of the life and the nature…

We were also impressed by the effort which has been done to find the hotels accordingly the need for: location, but not too much noise and traffic, facilities and size - and the rooms (many with balconies, or we paid a bit extra) – and f x the designer hotel at Hoi-An, a smaller and very personal treatment, bikes ready from the minutes we arrived to go to the beach (VERY NICE, thanks), positive interpretation of Happy Hour hours.. and all with excellent breakfasts and systems for keeping the luggage till you need it. We managed to walk from the hotel of Saigon to the shops we needed, the pedestrian area at nights/weekends, food markets, Jazz clubs and not to mention the famous hotels of the former war and their terraces with very excellent bands and music... Always feeling safe, late in the evening too, except of course we did choose the well up lit main streets.

Only comment or visit which have bothered us, is the SAPA. It is certainly a beautiful valley etc. BUT the large ecological footprint of an excessive number of tourists and the Chinese buildings sites hammering day and night, high rise hotels on their way to join so many already, is an environmental disaster effecting the area,

the changes and effects on the local people (selling out of their souls in a more than literary sense) that we and others might not be able to bear being a witness to. We had a lovely view, large terrace of an old but enlarged hotel, perfectly made (said by an architect), very nice guides, but still… l

Like Ha Long even if well-organized, these sights or areas are environmentally ticking disasters, so if you go, do be prepared to be focused and politically aware, which might not be too welcomed and not what people on vacation expects? If not told? Or where we just too unprepared for the trip??

The BIKE tour in that sense was perfect, you can see the countryside and see and sense where you are in the world, so we do respect a tour must find the balance between sights and sights… but now you have our opinion.
See you perhaps again for the tour of the country side..

Best wishes and regards
Hanne and Christel from Denmark

We had a very interesting and varied trip. A trip that affected us in such a good way that we still dream about it. The guides were inspiring and very easy to understand even though we don’t have the best English skills. It was impressing so accurate the guides were and we felt the whole time that everything was in control. The guide Fam in Sapa especially made a good impression on us. It was also nice that you changed our program so we had a night in a bungalow on Monkey Island instead of having two nights on the boat in Halong Bay. The guide Tam in Hué definitely made the trip of seeing old ruins exciting and our motorbike trip was very nice and fun.
The hardest place to understand what the guides said was at the Ho Chi Tunnels. Our other guide Lucy had to retell us everything afterwards. Only once did something go wrong and that was when we got dropped off at the foreign terminal instead of the domestic terminal in Hanoi. Luckily we made our flight anyway and it was nice that you followed up on us. The food was nice, interesting and different. We have actually tried to make some of the dishes after we got home.

We are not used to giving tips so it would have been nice to have been guided in this. Just so we did not feel like we cheated someone or got cheated. Also we made a mistake bringing our suitcases to the Halong Bay trip instead of bringing a little bag. We did not know that we would come back to the same hotel in Hanoi because then we would have left out suitcases there.

It is definitely a trip we can recommend to everyone.

Thanks for an amazing trip and the pictures.

Sincerely yours,
Lars Erikssen and company from Denmark

Dear Mr Tien

We do remember you from the train station in Hanoi.

Our journey to Vietnam has been absolutely fantastic, probably the greatest experience ever.

Trekking i Sapa with our guide Sung, cruise on Halong Bay and the city Hanoi, have all been very speciale. 3 days on Halong Bay is too long, the program begins to repeat itself, twice a cooking class, 2 times kayaking, pearlfarm and the caves. We still feel that we should have visited Cat Ba Island a whole day, so two nights, so we have reached the national Park. Hoi An is a beautiful city, and we enjoyed the stay at the hotel, the staff was very service minded and very friendly.

Logistics on our holiday has been truly exceptional, we were always picked up on time, and with great service and friendliness.

I have attached a photo of our new painting, bought in Hoi An, and imagines Hanoi.

Vietnam is not forgotten. Thank you.

Best regards

Kurt and Danka Skovgaard from Sweden

Hi Phong,

Yes we do remember you :-)

We enjoyed the trip very much. We thought it was very well organized and everything was absolutely wonderful. It was really nice we had a schedule with pick up times for each day. However we were a bit confused in the beginning because the danish company had given us very little information about our trip, so when we arrived to the hotel in Hanoi we had no idea what should happen to us. Luckily you called the hotel to inform us :-)))

We had VERY few complications during our trip. We had one time when our driver was late and had problems with check out at one hotel but then we just called you and everything was fixed. Very nice and comforting.

We only have one tiny complain about our first city tour guide. His name was something like Thong. He was very kind and knew a lot but we found it very difficult to understand his english pronunciation. We did not have this as a problem with any of the other guides. They were all lovely.

After all we had a perfect trip in Vietnam and we will definitely recommend Ethnic Travel Vietnam to other travellers.

Thank you very much for making our trip to Vietnam easy and unforgettable.

Best regards
Linda and Maria Anders from Norway

Dear Toan

Thank you for your mail and the pics of us from the train station in Hanoi.
We have returned to our every day lives in Toronto - but look back on our Vietnam vacation with great joy and pleasure.

We have had an eventful and adventurous 15 day tour of Vietnam and we are generally very happy with the way you and Ethnic Travel Vietnam have organized and helped us out during our trip.

Your guides have all been very nice and pleasant company, honoring punctuality and service mindedness.
Compliments to you and all of them.

Generally the tour venues and activities were picked and put together well.
We've enjoyed learning a little bit about Vietnamese culture, history, people and their ways of life (ethnic groups, north and south, relations to the neighboring nations and to the rest of the world).

On the practical side: If we were to change something this is what we would do differently:

Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island: Two days on the Junk boat (one night on the boat) would suffice - and on the other hand we didn't have a lot of time on Cat Ba Island really (in part because we ended up spending most of a day sailing, picking up other travellers, seeing the oyster farm for a second time etc. instead of going directly to Halong Bay town for the Cat Ba Island ferry). We would probably have preferred staying just two days/one night in Halong Bay and two days/ two nights on Cat Ba Island.

The war remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City: We ended up having only approx. 45 minutes at this museum which i way to little time. -We could have easily spend 90 minutes there, but we were behind schedule somehow..

As you remember we made a change of Hotels in Ho Chi Minh City so that we could stay at the Saigon Continental on our last night/ morning in the country - before leaving for Toronto. Thank you for making possible the refund of 50 US dollars. We just really felt like enjoying the luxury of the Saigon Continental Hotel as the sand in our Vietnam-hourglass was running out.

In general the hotels we stayed at were fine - and the hotel in Hoi An was very nice indeed.

Three guides in particular made an impression on us:

Mrs. Ma thi Say who guided us in Sapa and Cat Cat village was especially memorable to us - she made our village experiences so good and interesting, sharing a lot of her personal experiences and local knowledge with us - she was a real treasure!

Bobby (suggested nickname, was his real name 'Qwor'?). He showed us around in Hue's imperial city and made sure that we arrived there in style - going by rickshaw/ cyclo via the citys marketplace. We had a very nice day of seeing and learning in Hue.

Hung (? -his name is way longer, but he suggested that we called him Hung) was a terrific, sweet, joyful and knowledgeable guide on our trip to the Mekong Delta islands.
Paulina Verdate from Canada

Dear Dzung,

Thank you so much for your mail, and sorry for the late response.

I had a very good trip with your company and I really enjoyed my time in Vietnam. As you might remember I travels alone as my boyfriend broke his leg just before our trip. Even though I traveled alone it was a great trip and everyone, including all the guides, were very friendly and nice to me. It was also very nice of you to come and see me and help me go to the train station.

I really enjoyed the trekking in Sapa, my stay in Hoi An which is a beautiful city and also the trips from Saigon.
In Hue, the hotel was very nice and the motorbike tour was really great - it was a very friendly guide.

Halong Bay was also beautiful and I can only recommend the 3 days 2 night tour as you then get the opportunity to get away from all the tourists to a more quiet place (the kayaking was great!)
But I think that the stay at Cat Bay Island was "not needed". It was a nice little city, but it took too much time to get there and depart from the island again, so maybe the days for this trip and be converted to an extra day at another place, e.g. an extra day in Hanoi or in Sapa.

One last thing, it was really nice to have the short stay in A38 Hotel (maybe I don't remember the name...) in Hanoi after the overnight train from Sapa. It was good to have the opportunity to get a shower. My driver picked me up to go to the airport in Hanoi very late, so this was a little stressful for me. I was worried that I would not catch my plane. So for me it is better to be in good time then being late.

I hope that you can use my feedback, and just ask if you have any questions or need more information from me.
Also thanks for sending the photos.

At last, I wish you and your family all the best and Happy New Year!
Kind regards
Roberta Martini from Italy

Dear Loan

First of all thank you for the photos from Hanoi.
We really, really enjoyed our stay in Vietnam. I am not sure if you planned our entire stay, but everything went smoothly. We were picked up at the agreed time and the guides were very very friendly and knowledgeable. May in Sapa was the kindest woman ever, the guy in Hue, who's name I do not remember told us all he knew and had answers to all our questions. He, and his fellow drivers took us for the ride of our lives throug Hue and the surroundings. We were especially impressed by Dat in Saigon who knew so much about the war and did all he could to make us feel comfortable. We have absolutely nothing to complain about in that direction.
Only one part of the trip could have been planned differently. We found the bus drive from Saigon to the Mekong delta too long compared to what we experienced in Mekong. Expecially the visit to the place were we had fruit and local people sang for us, the drive in the horse carriage and the sailing in boats by man power when we were on board, but returning by motor, was too "touristic" for us. We could have been without that part. The stay in the homestay was nice and also the sailing on the delta and the visit to the floatimg market, even if it was a little small was ok.

The four of us agree that we have never experienced that much on a three weeks vacation and we are still smilimg when talking about it.

Many kind regards
Barbara Castillo from United States

Hi Loan

I'm sorry I haven't responder earlier, but I have been really busy. I guess, that's the down side of having a nice long vacation:-)

We had a really nice trip. I would definitely recommend you to other travelers.

We liked the way we had a personal contact to you and how you always checked up on os before a trip.

The trips and guides were really good. The two girls in Sapa were really nice. There were some kind of misunderstanding in Sapa though, so we only walked in the villages. We didn't get to hike in the scenery as described in the program. We would have liked to do that, but maybe they decider to not do that because I had som trouble with my stomach.

We were also satisfied with the hotels.

The motorcycle trip was the hight light of the trip.

One thing I think you should consider is incoming people that the beach in Hoi An Beach Hotel has almost despaired. I know, that there isn't a whole lot you can do about it, but it would be nice to know, before you go there.

But again. All in all we had a really nice trip and would definitely recommend you to other travelers:-)

Best regards
Christian McCall from Ireland

Testimonials - Ethnic Travel Vietnam

Testimonials - ethnictravelvietnam.com - Ethnic Travel Vietnam