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

Michelle Davis
Feedback

I was interested in visiting Vietnam and found TNK Travel through a search engine. I was a little sceptical about booking online as sometimes you do not get what you paid for. My experience with TNK Travel exceeded my expectations. I was met by our lovely tour guide Nhy in Hochiminh city and she absolutely looked after us. The holiday was very relaxing and experienced with ease. I travelled from HCMC - Hanoi and every experience with the guides and drivers were great.

I would very much recommend TNK Travel. Vietnam is a wonderful place to visit and the people are lovely.

The tour I experienced was good value for money.

Michelle Davis - Sydney, Australia

Andrea
Mekong Delta tour (Oct)/ Andrea

Dear Hang
Hello,

Just a quick email to say thank you for arranging this trip. We just got back and it was excellent.
I would recommend your service to my friends and colleagues.
Thank you,

Andrea

Jerry&Leslie Beilman
Vietnam Tour
Thank you for the great guides you provided, we had a wonderful time in vietman and even though we had some problems we were extremly happy with our tour from saigon to hanoi we will be back for sure.

Shaun McCree
Halong Bay - Huong Hai Junk

Went in middle of February 2008 when the weather was bitterly cold & misty. This was a real shame as everyone agreed it would have been a fabulous two days otherwise.

Daina Valanciene
The tour was above our expectations

We, the group of 6, started our tour in Hanoi on January 3, 2008. We had chosen the authentic Vietnam tour -16 days/15 nights, however, excluded Lao Cai and Sapa because of cold weather there. Instead we prolonged our stay in Nha Trang where the weather forecast promised sunshine and heat. We stayed in 4* hotels and were pleasantly surprised by much higher quality of services in comparison to European 4* hotels. Asia Paradise hotel in Nha Trang, where we had been offered senior deluxe rooms because our 4* hotel was fully booked for those days, was the greatest discovery as we had not seen such excellent 3* accomodation anywhere else.

The tour guides -we had 4 guides in different cities - spoke good English, were always punctual and efficient and provided us with much valuable new information on Vietnamese culture and history. We were fascinated by Halong bay trip - the nature was amazing, the rooms were convenient and the food was varied and delicious. If we had been sure about the weather in Halong bay, we would have stayed on boat 2 nights instead of the one. We found the floating market in Mekong delta- a must to see-very impressive. The war museum made a shocking impression on us. Our flight from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh city was delayed because of the weather so the travel agency took the decision to get us there by coach saving us half of the next tour day in Ho Chi Minh city.

We have not seen the tribes in the North, have not been to Dalat and stayed too few days in Ho Chi Minh city this time. We hope to return to Vietnam next year to see these sites. We have previously been to Thailand, south of China, Cambodia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and we make comparisons but the tour to Vietnam has exceeded all the expectations.

In the name of the whole group I would like to thank Mr. Dzung Trinh and Ms Nhu Y for their efforts to organise the best available vacation and we would undoubtedly recommend this travel agency to friends.

Daina Valanciene
Lithuania

Kerry and Mal Morters
Mekong Delta Tour to Phnompenh ( Oct 28th 08 )

Dear Ms Nhu Y

My husband and I have now returned to New Zealand from our very memorable holiday in Vietnam and Cambodia. TNK booked the Mekong Tour to Phnom Penh for us and our tour guide was JJ. Our Mekong tour was wonderful, mostly due to JJ who looked after us so well in every way. JJ was a very professional, friendly and helpful guide.

We would be very grateful if you could forward this email to JJ's manager. We would highly recommend JJ as a tour guide for any foreign visitor to your country.

We would like to make one small suggestion about the tour. It would have been helpful to have the correct Cambodia Visa forms prior to our departure on the boat to Phnom Penh. Before our departure from New Zealand, we did download forms from the Cambodian Embassy web site - bu 
we did download forms from the Cambodian Embassy web site - but on the day, the Cambodian Customs required a different form.

The only other comment we would like to offer, and this has nothing to do with the TNK Mekong Tour itself, but we were very concerned about the terrible living condition for the two bears at the Crocodile Park. If you can provide any influence to help these bears, we are sure they would appreciate this.

Thank you TNK for a great tour.

Kerry and Mal Morters

Joel Ng
Vietnam travel services

Dear Mr Dzung Trinh,

our group will like to thank you and your team for the memorable trip in Ho Chiminh city.

JJ (our tour guide) was good and responsible, he took special care of the old and kids well.

Will sure recommend TNK Travel to friends visiting Vietnam.

Joel Ng
Singapore

marianne Kant-Schaps
Mekong Delta tour 2 days/1night Aug 9th -10th 2011

Dear Luu Vo!

At the end of our Vietnam travel I would like to thank you very much for the organisation of our Mekong Delta tour, which was really a great pleasure for our family. It was also a pleasure to meet your local guide and to see so many interesting spots of your beautiful country.

Best regards, Marianne Kant