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

John Chiles
Vietnam & Cambodian Tour II

Dear Mr. Dzung

We would like to express our appreciation for TNK's efforts to make our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia so enjoyable. Of our many trips since 2002, this one has been the best. Some of that is due to the attraction of the two countries. But a bigger reason is the treatment we received from your company.

All of our hotels were comfortable, and even somewhat luxurious for a couple that usually stays in bed and breakfast type accommodations. Very good meals in excellent dining establishments.

Our guides deserve most of the credit for the success of our trips. They looked after us from pick up to departure. They ensured that we visited sites at the right time to avoid most of the crowds and avoid the hottest time of the day. They varied the itinerary periodically, with our consent, to ensure that we saw the most desirable attractions, They were well informed about the history and stories of the attractions. They moved us along to cover the itinerary without us feeling that we were being rushed. We always felt that we had any time we wanted to wander through the sites according to our interest.

Although the guides were probably the strongest feature of a very well organized and professionally run tour, their one weakness was their English pronounciation. It was difficult at times to understand the message because some words were pronounced differently from what we are used to hearing. On the whole, however, that was a minimal limitation.

A special thank you for providing us with the document permitting us multiple visits to Vietnam. We had arranged for our visas to Vietnam, although you had offered to do so. However, enroute home, when we and presented our passports with single entry visas to the ticket agent at the Siem Reap airport in Cambodia, we were advised that we needed multiple visit visas in order to obtain a boarding pass for our flight to Hochiminh City, Even though we had advised you that we would be obtaining our visas on our own, your thoughtfulness and thoroughness in providing the multiple visit authorization saved us a lot of grief. This incident brought home to us more than anything else, TNK's level of professionalism and concern for its customers.
There are many other things that we could add to illustrate how well we were looked after by your company. When we first 'discovered' TNK while researching on the internet, our first thought was that this unknown tour company was probably a low budget, high risk venture. You get what you pay for, right? Well, in this case you get more than you would normally pay for - much more. We had been reassured somewhat by a prior TNK traveller who had posted a testimonial on the TNK site, as well as by the timeliness and quality of feedback we received from our e-mail enquires to TNK. However, we still remained slightly skeptical prior to arriving in Hanoi. Within hours of arriving, however, we were reassured that we were in good hands and that we were going to have a marvellous experience. The tour surpassed our expectations.

We wish TNK much success for the future. We expect that your company will eventually displace North American tour companies as the leading choce for tours to Indochina.

Sincerely,

Virjon
Ontario, Canada

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

Jim & Bev Fisher
Thank you

My wife and I have visited Vietnam twice now 1st time in 2007 then again in 2008. We have nothing but praise for tnk travel. They sorted out our itenerary and booked the hotels for us. It was an excellent experience.So much so that we are returning in 2009. You can be sure that we will be using tnk travel again, keep up the good work and see you again soon.

Jim & Bev Fisher
Congratulations tnk travel

My wife and have just arrived home from a 3 weeks visit to Vietnam.We used TNK TRAVEL for all our travel needs,Hotel Bookings,Airline flights,Private car hire,They arranged everything.We had a great time and everything went like clockwork.The Hotels they booked for us were excellent.The Cars and drivers were all excellent.Our internal flights went off without a hitch,Could not find fault with anything.We have nothing but praise for TNK Travel and their very professional Staff.So to all the staff a very big thank you.

Jim & Bev Fisher.

Ho Dac Nguyen
thank you !

I knew TNK since 3 years.Just one word for those who read this message :You can really trust them !!!!
Special thanks to Mrs Pham Nhu,Miss Thao,M.Duy !!!
Rendez-vous to the next year !

Ho Dac Nguyen

Mr. Chris Kostrzak
Packaged tour (Sep 24 - Oct 5)

Hello Ms Hang
 
It was my pleasure to see you again
I'd call you from Hanoi but unfortunately it was your day off work .
I would like to thank you for excellent holiday , all hotels , points of interest and tours are very well organise . I will recommend you to all my friend  as the best travel office in Vietnam and Asia area.
 
Thanks again
With best regard
Chris Kostrzak

Rainer Passon
Tailormade trip to VIetnam & Cambodia

booked a tailormade trip Hanoi - Angkor Wat - Saigon with TNK; perfectly organised and all in all just great.

Go TNK !!

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

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)