Quyet:
Greetings from Colorado sir !! We are back home and I am back at work – that is hard after all the good times we had in SE Asia.
I figured I would give you a quick review of the trip for your records. I will break the trip into 3 parts as that makes most sense to me at least. I stated most of this in the “reviews” but figured I would write directly as well.
a) North Vietnam.
we REALLY enjoyed Hanoi and just walking the city and seeing the sites – you live in a dynamic city.
Going to Sapa and to Halong Bay was great although the weather could have been better. No big deal though – we still had a wonderful time in both these very unique settings.
Whin was a great guide. He was low key, seemed to know his stuff and knew when to step back and just let us be on our own – no concerns here.
ISSUES
It would have been nice to understand the weather better ahead of time. It was cooler than expected and moreso I thought we would have seen more sun.
It would have been nice to be given some guidance on tipping drivers and guides. We pretty much went with a $4-6 per day per person rate as this is what we heard from some folks here in Colorado – I hope those numbers were okay – like I said we just had NO idea what to do. I certainly didn’t want to give bad tips so if these were bad please accept my apologies.
b) Center Vietnam
much warmer !! Beautiful beaches
In retrospect based upon weather in Hue and the lack of free time in Hoi An we would have just as soon had an extra day of R&R in Hoi An at the Beach and not gone to Hue.
Tiger and Handsome were good guide/driver combinations although Tiger is a bit more “over-concerned” about clients. Even during lunch he checked on things with us – Ann and I are much more relaxed than that and really didn’t need the extra attention. No big deal for us but this might be a little overbearing for others.
The Tourist locations we visited in Hoi An seemed a to be a bit more “pressure” than we wanted. The folks at these places really almost expected you to buy something even if we didn’t really want or need something. You might consider scaling back on a few of these – those of note (the historic house in Hoi An (the daughter or whoever it was that toured us seemed very upset that we weren’t going to but something), and the Marble works “factory” in C Vietnam seemed overly contentious when we just wanted to see what they did – not buy.
c) Cambodia
Getting the tickets was a bit of a hassle but worked out fine and it happened during a rainstorm so we were able to visit a bit with the folks that brought them by – very nice.
Kaden, the guide we had was great (not a single complaint) – The hotel was really good and a great way to finish the trip – another day or 2 would have been great in Siem Reap but we were limited by our time. We had 2 dinners at Khmer shows and one would have been fine and a dinner on our own the second night would have worked out a bit better. Angkow Wat, Angkor Thom etc were really outstanding places to see. I would love to visit S Cambodia and see the beaches there – maybe next time !!
All in all we rate the trip VERY Highly. It was wonderful to be back in SE Asia and to relax, sight see, people watch and eat GREAT food. I would recommend your service to anyone with no concerns (other than that written above) and if we return to SE Asia I would use your services again.
Thank you so much for all your help – I will send pictures in the next few days ….