Vietnam tour LONG WAY UP, guests comments and review.

Bill William Smith, based in Boulder City - Nevada, USA, the member of Rotary Club, together with 37 people, joined your 15 days VIETNAM in Nov 2005 ( similar to THE LONG WAY UP, a ready-made tour of THREELAND ). After his very happy trip, he immediately plans another group in Nov 2005 to Vietnam

We certainly do thank you for such a wonderful tour of Vietnam. Both Elaine and I appreciate the opportunity to have dinner with you and the very beautiful table cloths. I have contacted Singapore Air about space in November and will be in contact with you as soon as I have some suggested dates from them. We will be looking for a similar tour with some minor modifications and will very likely want to start in Hanoi instead of Saigon.

If there is any way I have be of help to you here in America I will be glad to assist in any way that I can and please feel free to use me as a reference.

Igor Streltsov, a Russian guy, joinned our SET DEPARTURE The Long way up in Mar 2006

I would like to say you and TreeLand Travel company huge thanks for finely organized tour.

Service was excellent except for Dalat city (there were problems with meals, not on my taste). I said about it local guide. She perceived it with understanding.

I will recommend the service of TreeLand Travel company my friends and familiars.

John Aspinal, from SUNBURY, MIDDX TW16 5EX, UK, with 7 paxs, joinned our SET - DEPARTURE tours The Long way up in Nov 2005. He actually booked our Nov 3004 tour but due to health problem, he must delay one year.

....The contents of my response was basically that we had the most fantastic experience thanks to your company and your staff . I had never booked a holiday on the internet before and was nervous about what we may have landed ourselves with . Your helpfulness with my queries via email prior to the journey went a long way to making us feel safe in your hands , but there was still a bit of doubt .

As soon as we landed in Hanoi and were met by our “larger than life” guide Hunj we both knew that we were going to be OK...

Clare and myself have just returned from the SET02 - THE LONG WAY UP TOUR ON 14TH-NOV, 2005. We both had a wonderful time which was in the main part due to the itinerary and guides that Threeland provided. We expected all the hotels to be of a similar standard to the one in Saigon and were surprised, and very pleased, to find that the remainder were all of a much higher standard and were all well located.

The standard of food was excellent with meals provided in a varying selection of restaurants. If we had any comment to make there was too much food and we would have been equally satisfied with a lighter lunch. The choice of the boat to eat on followed by a cruise on the first night was just right as it gave the opportunity to meet the other members of the group.

We were particularly impressed by the amount of inclusive items on the trip. I think everybody enjoyed the boat trip around Halong Bay and were fascinated by the rock formations. The good weather also made its contribution as it did for our day out on the Meking Delta.

As regards the guides they have a good knowledge of their areas and could not have been more helpful. Particular mention should go to our second guide, Tom, who had an excellent appreciation of the english language and was able to quickly focus in on the groups requests etc. Although our last guides english comprehension needs some work on it, he was keen and eager to please and if given the right encouragement has the potential to become an excellent guide.

Clare much appreciated the phone call on the first night from one of your executives welcoming her to Saigon after we had to unfortunately cancel the holiday last year.

We have already begun to think about possibilities for next year and would greatly appreciate an idea of cost and recommended itineray for about a week in Cambodia for either 2 or 4 persons.

John Aspinal, from SUNBURY, MIDDX TW16 5EX, UK, planned taking our THE LONG WAY UP in Nov2004. Unfortunately, he has a serious problem that lead to the delay of his tour after sending us the deposit. We certainly refunded the deposit to him but please read what he wrote, you could understand the way we did it

Thank you very much for the refund. We do appreciate the effort that you have gone to in returning the deposit. Although, unfortunately, we have not managed to go on the tour we would have no hesitation in recommending 'Threeland Travel' to any of our friends and colleagues as a Travel Company who provides an exceptional service to all clients.

Clare is continuing to progress well and we are hoping to be able to go on the tour in Nov 2005. In the meantime if I can be of any assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.

Karin Malle, Swidish woman, with her husband Norbet Malle and another couple, took our 15 days Vietnam in Feb 2005

Dear Mr Nguyen Van Huan.
Thank you VERY MUCH for a great outstanding trip thru Vietnam!
We are very, very Pleased you done a very good job for us.
I will write you more when we are back in Sweden in April.
Just now we stay 5 weeks more in the sun in Thailand, Koh Samui.
The very best regards from
Karin and Norbert Malle and Ing-Britt Brax/Andersson

Dr. Dieter Muller and Dr. Ronald Kemle the professors based in Vienna and Berlin, took our 15-days Grand tours Vietnam in Nov 2004

We have all arrived well and tired in Austria and have meanwhile already adapted to the conditions here with temperatures at the moment around zero (centigrade)...

We have enjoyed our trip very much and we can say that the organization was perfect. I.e. we were always picked up at the time agreed and we did not have to care about anything as this was all done by our guides.

We had of course this language problem with Tu which you however solved with great flexibility. I must say here that we really liked Tu very much as a person as he really was an extremely nice fellow, always in good mood.

Our other guide Tan in the south was obviously much more experienced and showed much competence.

If there is anything we would suggest you to consider for the future, it would be the meals.

We have already spoken about the fact, that the selected restaurants - particularly evening - should have a nice ambience (like the Trung... in Hanoi on Nov.9th). I am sure that in coming years the number of restaurants with nice ambience will increase a lot, so that it is easier for you to make selections. With ambience we do mean for example (whenever possible): wooden or bamboo chairs instead of plastic, tablecloth, napkins on the table, some plants etc.

We visited some restaurants which fully met the "ambience" requirement and I am sure that with growing tourism the situation will improve.

The other thing about eating is the Vietnamese set menu. We felt, that often we got the same dishes (even from lunch to dinner it was sometimes the same). Our suggestion here could be: less courses (for us it was ALWAYS too much to eat) but more alternation from one meal to the other. If you get Shrimps-Pork-Fish-Beef-Soup for nearly every meal than it is obvious that it is difficult to serve something different at the next meal. So maybe a seafood-pork-soup meal on one occasion and then a fish-beef-soup (different soup!) on the next meal would be better. Also a dessert not being "tropical fruit" was a rarity. But there are other desserts as we experienced like grilled pineapple (not just plain) or baked bananas or creme caramel etc.

So if i try to summarize the food subject I would say: Less courses more variety during the tour whenever possible.

For the last evening in HCMC you obviously wanted to give us a special treat with the dinner on the boat and we appreciated this. However if you ask me, I would advise you to be careful with this type of restaurants. It is a big difference if your client is a group of 10 or more Japanese or Taiwanese or Koreans or if your client is a small group (two, four or even six people) from Europe. From my experience (and I worked as a tour guide in Vienna many years ago) Europeans - and here particularly if they are only a small group - prefer not to dine within a crowd of hundred and more other people shouting and singing...

A secluded nice little restaurant with nice ambience is always a good choice and may even be cheaper than the dinner on the boat.

I must however emphasize that we do not complain about this, but if you ask us what suggestions we would have, that is it.

Finally we would like to thank you and all at Threeland travel for their efforts. If one day you need someone you can refer to in Europe (if a potential client wants a reference address like I asked you for one) you can always use my mail address.

Joe, a chemistry teacher based in Cali, USA and Galie Stone, a mathematic teacher, took our 23-day "The Long Way up" tour plus extension to Phu Quoc island on Feb 2004, as a celebration after the success of their son's hiking. He had been hiking a walking Trail called the Appalachian Trail which goes from the State of Maine to the State of Georgia in the USA. He totally hiked ( walked) 2178 miles for 5 months.

Dear Nguyen,

Thank you for our wonderful trip to Vietnam on February 9, 2004. "The Long Way Up" trip is and excellent way to get to know a little about Vietnam. It is an excellent value. We hope we can convince more Americans to visit Vietnam and we are still basking in the warm memories of our fantastic trip. We loved the people of Vietnam, the sites we visited, the beautiful country, the food, the excellent hotels and our guides and drivers. All of the food we ate was delicious, but some of it was incredible, both in taste and the beauty of its presentation. Many times we had too much to eat, eight to ten courses is too much food. We also were able to taste and enjoy different foods from each region. We loved the food so much that we are looking for a Vietnamese cooking class. Because we were the only people on our trip we got to know our guides well and we really enjoyed them. They were very devoted to making sure we had a safe and enjoyable trip. We could understand their English and we learned so much about your county. We had five different guides in the different parts of the country and we were glad to have so many different perspectives. We are now corresponding by email with two of our wonderful guides. We were very impressed with the ability of our drivers. In Vietnam a driver needs to be able to squeeze through tight spaces in traffic safely and our drivers were the best.

The temples, pagodas, museums, national parks and markets that we visited were so interesting and educational. The Pagodas are so incredibly beautiful and the stories of the Goddess of Mercy, Buddha, Confucius, and many more historical figures. The History Museum and our guide, Hoan, in Ho Chi Minh City gave us an excellent overview of Vietnam through the ages. We loved every city we visited, but Dalat, Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi stand out in our memories as cities we would like to visit again and learn more about.

The extra trips that you helped us plan were excellent. Phu Quoc was beautiful, quiet, and had wonderful beaches for swimming. We hired a taxi to see the northern part of the island and wished we had spent several more days on Phu Quoc so that we could see even more. The Saigon Phu Quoc Resort was an excellent 4 star resort set among palms, trees and flowers overlooking a beautiful beach.

We have so many fond memories of our trip to Cat Ba island. Riding on motor cycle taxis was so much fun. The hike that our guide, Loi, worked out for us with the help of a man who used to be a security guard in Cat Ba National Park was perfect. It was about 8 km. long and we saw much of the National Park. At the end we visited a cave that was used by the army during the American-Vietnamese war. The cave is 3 stories high and was used as a hospital and relaxation place for the Vietnamese army, and our guide through the cave was a former army man who worked in the cave during the war. He was so cute and he sang us a song.

Our visit to the Orphanage arranged by you was wonderful and meaningful. The director of the orphanage spent more than an hour with us answering our questions and giving us a tour. We would like to help the orphanage more by sending them clothes. We would also like to know more about how to adopt a child from the orphanage. We are too old to adopt, but we know many Americans who are desperately wanting to adopt a baby or young child. If we can find people who are going to visit the orphanage we could send clothing for the orphans with them. The visit Bich arranged to the school was very enlightening. The Vietnamese school system is excellent. We were very impressed by the teachers and students.

In short we loved your country and the hard working people and we encourage others to take a trip with Threeland. We encourage interested people to email us at jstone5@rochester.rr.com and we will answer any questions or tell more about our trip.

Thanks Mr. Joe for your big donation to Orphanages of handicapped children in Vietnam. In addition, the teachers and pupils at the local primary school again and again talked about "a giant Westerner" who is very friendly with them.