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)

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

kmroberts
Thanks

To the management, TNK travel. (HCMC and Ha Noi)

Recently, I was one of a party of 4 people to visit Vietnam. Our bookings with your company were under the name of Mrs. Jane Rosemary Fowler & party. The "party" consisting of my wife and myself and Jane's husband, Barry.

Jane Fowler belongs to a group of Australian nurses who exchange places with Vietnamese nurses, in order to have an understanding of nursing conditions existing in both countries.

This was Jane's 2nd visit to Vietnam and we were to arrive at the end of her attachment and then go touring together. Jane, being "on-the-spot," was able to arrange hotel bookings for us and told us not to try and book any tours from Australia, as the nurses always used "An excellent local travel agent!" This being TNK!

Having now experienced the services provided by TNK, I must congratulate you on your organisation and agree that it is "Excellent" in all respects.

We enjoyed our tour to the Mekong Delta immensely,- with courier Dong.

The tour to Cau Dai and Cu Chi was just as good,- with courier "Slim Jim!"

In both cases, we were impressed to note that one of the girls from the office came out and stuck signs on the various buses' side windows,- telling which tour each bus was going on. This small touch made things much easier for couriers and passengers to sort themselves out. It is small touches like this that make a big difference to customers!

Special mention must be made of the service provided by Ms Nhu Y at HCMC office.

We had made a rough itinerary of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see once we left HCMC and handed this to one of the girls in the office, she and 2 others looked at it and decided it needed someone with more experience and so we met Ms Nhu. She knew exactly what was needed and discussed everything with us and then told us to come back at 2:30pm to see the results of her labours! This was a Sunday and when we returned at 3pm, she was still hard at it. We later discovered, while talking to the office girls, that Ms Nhu was supposed to finish at 1pm! She was doing our itinerary and bookings in her own time and it was getting on for 5pm when we finished!!

Her hard work paid off, because everything went exactly to plan. She explained that not all tickets were on hand, but that everything we would need for onward travel would be e-mailed to us at the hotels she had booked for us. This worried us a bit initially, but it worked perfectly!!

She also explained that TNK's Ha Noi representative would contact us with tickets etc for our tours from Ha Noi and to Laos.

Mr Chung, at Ha Noi, came to our hotel. He went through our itinerary with us and made some excellent suggestions which we adopted with thanks. He said that we didn't want to be wandering around trying to get transport from the railway station at Lao Cai up to Sa Pa and he'd organise that and for the same taxy to collect us for the return trip later on. In due course, he escorted us to the station, led us to the train and our carriage and to our sleeping compartment. He would meet us at Ha Noi station on our return, take us back to our hotel for breakfast and make sure that our transport down to Ha Long arrived on time. When, a few days later, we arrived back from Ha Long, he came to our hotel and gave us our airline tickets for Laos and our vouchers for our hotels.

Both Ms Nhu and Mr Chung went above and beyond the normal course of duty to make our travels a smooth and hassle-free experience and we thank them for their efforts on our behalf.

You must be congratulated on your organisation as a whole. We hope that TNK remains a very successful business and does indeed look Towards the Next Millenium!!

Our regards. Mike and Kathleen Roberts. Corowa. Australia

Doreen Neo (from Singapore)
Thank you, TNK Travel

My friend, Poon Ee Ping and myself had signed up for a 10 days customised package with TNK Travel in May 2006. We had enjoyed ourselves a lot. TNK Travel had taken good care of us during our trip. The tour guides were very friendly and helpful. The accomodation we had during our stay throughout Vietnam was good. The lunch catered for us were great too.

I would recommend my friends to sign up with TNK Travel if they go to Vietnam. Thanks once again.

Tim Baldwin
Vietnam Group Trip - Thanks Ms Nhy (Kathy)

Having just returned from our trip to Vietnam, we would like to thank TNK Travel and particularly Ms. Nhu who has done such a wonderful job of organizing our group of 10 Aussies on a fantastic trip around this beautiful country.
This is the second trip that Kathy has put together at my request and both times have been fautless. Nothing is too much for Kathy - changing arrangements on the go to suit our particular requirements and always in contact to ensure that we are having a great time.
Fantastic also were all the TNK guides that we had the pleasure to meet and travel with. They are so passionate about their country and so knowledgable as well that we couldn't help but be fasinated by the scenery, the people and the culture. Thanks so much to JJ in Ho Chi Minh City, Quyen in Hanoi and the ever smiling Zoom Zoom in Sapa. We will keep in touch. Thanks again TNK - Your services and people are a credit to Vietnam - Cam o'n!

Terry Leach
Re: Mekong Delta and Cu Chi tunnel tour

Dear Luu Vo

we are now back in Australia with many wonderful memories of our exciting trip to Vietnam.We wish to thank you personally for assisting us and organizing 2 tours whilst we were in Siagon. The trip to Mekong delta was an absolute highlight,a wonderful,skillful driver,Mr Hung and a most informative and capable guide Huy enabled us to have many great experiences.

Also the lady at the front desk who assisted me in printing out our boarding passes for the next day flights to KL and Melbourne was wonderful and most cooperative. It all added up to a memorable experience which we have no hesitation in recommending to other travellers.
Many thanks and Kind regards to all at TNK Travel

Terry and Deirdre Leach

Selina
THANK YOU

Special Thanks to Mr Le Hung Kiet from your Dalat Office
Words cannot express our heartful THANKS to him
Mr Le was very responsible and helpful.

Thank you for your Excellence Service

I would certainly recommend our friends in Singapore
to use TNK Travel if they are going to Vietnam

Mr. Barry Gannon
ADAA Reunion and trip to Ha Noi
Danh

Just a short note to say thank you for your very professional services provided to the Australian Air Dispatch Association (ADAA) reunion in Saigon and the tours you arranged for us during the two weeks we were in Vietnam. The guides were very good and spoke good english which assisted us very much, they were very knowledgeable about the country and its people. Your charges for the services provided were very modest and much better than those offered by companies based here in Australia.

Should you require I am happy to post you a letter from the ADAA recommending your services to anyone who may be interested.

Again our thanks for your services they were excellent.

Barry Gannon

Quinn Waterloo
Thanks for a memorable trip!

Recently we completed a customized trip to Vietnam which you planned . My wife and I were very pleased with the entire trip, and the guides who escorted us. I can highly recommend TNK Travel, and have done so to all who ask. Please feel free to use us as a reference.

Thanks for a memorable trip!

Quinn Waterloo

Natalia Ramos
Private Package Tour - Vietnam & Cambodia 21 days

Hi,

Although we didn't contact you directly (your services were booked by Orbita, a portuguese travel agency) we would like to thank you for the excellent 3 weeks holiday that you provided us last March.

The hotels were very good and the homestays exceeded our expectations. The food was just delicious. We had no problem at all in eating vegetarian. The guides and drivers were great, friendly and helpful, especially M. Manh in Sapa, who was incredibly professional and made sure that our needs were met at all times. Although we enjoyed the all trip very much, the tour in Sapa was the one that we liked most.

We were just a little disapointed with the program change made in Cat Ba island. We just stayed overnight there. For some reason (which we couldn't understand) we had to come back to Halong early in the morning instead of doing the long treck in the island. It was a pitty. Cat Ba is so beautiful.

Vietnam will stay in our hearts!

Thank you!

Natalia & Josefina Ramos
Portugal