vietnamstay.com
 

Hi team!

Has anyone taken any tours of vietnam with vietnamstay.com?

We're considering their 16 day or 20 day tour package, looks pretty good value.

thanks in advance for your help.

Eek

I can give them a big thumbs up!

We just got back from a week in Viet Nam, where we used vietnamstay.com for our accommodations and "in-country" travel. Have not had time to post a full trip report but I can tell you this.....they arranged airport pickup in HCM, our hotel (Majestic) in HCM, a half day tour to Cu Chi tunnels, a 2 day/one night trip to the Mekong including guide, driver and hotel accommodations at the Victoria Can Tho, air tickets from HCM to Danang and hotel accommodations at the Victoria Hoi An. Everything went exactly according to plan and we were very pleased.

Mr. Tuan was my contact. He communicated with me promptly and in detail throughout the planning process. There were no surprises, just a smooth and enjoyable trip. During planning, I checked the hotel rates on 4 different web sites, including the hotel's own and Mr. Tuan had a better rate in every case. The car they provided for the Mekong trip was clean, comfortable and stocked with bottles of ice water. Our driver was very skillful in navigating the nightmarish traffic and our guide was flexible, eager to please and had a great sense of humor.

I would imagine their longer tours would be planned with the same attention to detail and professionalism. Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

PS For all of the above services, I did not pay a cent until I arrived in HCM.

Lindsey, Would love to hear more about your trip, particularly details of your Mekong Delta stay. Is there any way to avoid the horrible traffic by taking a boat? How was Victoria Can Tho? Also interested to hear details about Hoi An and the Victoria there.

I can echo Lindsey. We didn't book any tours with VietnamStay, but used them for airport pickup, hotel reservations and flight arrangements for two separate trips to Vietnam. They provided excellent, reliable and reasonably-priced service. Their drivers were ontime, with clean, comfortable vehicles. As Lindsey indicated, payment was made once we arrived in-country. We also dealt with Mr. Tuan and found him to be very responsive and eager to please.

Thanks guys

I feel alot better now.

If anyone else has done a tour with Mr Tuan than I would love to hear from you.

Since you didnt do a tour, did you use a guide whilst in VN?

Eek

Thank you for the link, I will definitely book them on my next trip.

CFW, we liked both the Victoria Can Tho and the one in Hoi An very much.

The Victoria Can Tho sits right on the Mekong River. The building is in a U shape with the open part of the U facing the river and enclosing a lovely pool. It's a few km from the main part of town, so if you want to go out for dinner, it will be a short taxi ride. We arrived late afternoon, tired and sweaty from a day in the Mekong, and decided to eat in the hotel. We ate on a terrace overlooking the river. It was a nice quiet alternative to the indoor dining room, where there were numerous large tour groups seated. They were all Europeans.....very few Americans around. Coils were lit under the tables, so if there were mosquitos around, they did not bother us. Menu offered both Western and local dishes. Quality was good and price was reasonable for a hotel (about $20 for 2 people, without wine.) After dinner we used the high speed internet in the Business Center to check email and then went to the spa for what was supposed to be a relaxing treatment before bed. This was the only negative about this hotel. I have been in many spas throughout Asia, both luxurious and basic, and I can honestly say this was the worst treatment I have ever had. Fortunately my daughter enjoyed hers quite a bit. I must have had a trainee working on me. But oh well, at $27US it was not a huge loss. Still had a good night's sleep. We had heard that river traffic could be a noise problem at this hotel, but our room was at the "bottom" of the U, farthest from the river and it was quiet. The room was fairly small, but clean and comfortable and had nice balcony with view of river and pool. Breakfast is a buffet with all the usual choices. The tour groups all departed quite early, so we had the restaurant to ourselves.

Out of time for the moment. Will get to the Victoria Hoi An in another post soon.

Thanks, Lindsey. Am also eager to hear about your tours of the Mekong area. Is it worthwhile to do two nights or is one night enough?

To finish up on the Mekong......in the two day trip we were able to get a very good idea about life there. I must admit, as a child of the Viet Nam war era, who saw this region on TV every night as a war zone, it was a bit surreal to be there, but also extremely interesting. There were a few areas where you could certainly imagine scenes from "Apocalypse Now." (Even though I know it was not filmed there.)

We spent a fair amount of time traveling in boats on the river and its many tributaries. We visited villages and markets on land, and a HUGE floating market in Cai Rang (a very local, wholesale market, completely different from the one set up for tourists in Damnoen Saduak near Bangkok). We saw rice paper, coconut candy and puffed rice being made in one village and we watched terra cotta bricks being made by hand in a riverside factory. We tried the local specialty, elephant ear fish (excellent!!)and some other seafood dishes, during a lovely lunch by the river. When it was time to debark for lunch, it was low tide, and our boat was unable to get far enough up the tributary to get there. No problem....our guide called ahead on his cell phone and when we debarked about 3 km downriver from the restaurant, there were motorbikes and drivers waiting to take us the rest of the way by road. By the time we finished lunch, the water had risen and our boat retrieved us from the dock at the restaurant.

I'm not sure what else you would be able to see by staying another day in the Mekong. It could be just more of the same. If you are pushed for time at all, I would say 2 days, one night is perfectly adequate.
I believe the 2 night tour continues down to Chau Doc. That's convenient if you are headed for Cambodia, but it would be very long return trip, if you have to go all the way back to HCM from there.
With regard to the traffic leaving HCM.....it's really not that big an issue if you have a driver who is skillful in navigating his way through the sea of motorbikes, trucks, cars, bicycles, and pedestrians. You can be a spectator of the organized chaos from the airconditioned back seat. We drove about 3 hours south of HCM before we got on the boat at Cai Be. My favorite part of the ride was going through the villages and watching the school girls in their perfect white ao dais, ride their bicycles in formation along the road.
(I think I read somewhere you can do that first part of the trip by boat instead of road, but for some reason it was not recommended. You could ask Mr. Tuan about that.)

Vietnamstay.com coordinated everything perfectly. Whenever we were done at a particularvisit, like magic, there was our car or our boat, waiting to pick us up at that exact location, with bottles of ice water and wet wipes. (It is very hot and this time of year, very dusty and we got quite sweaty and filthy.)

Let me know if you have any other questions on the Mekong....will continue about Hoi An in another post.

Lindsey, Would love to hear more about your Vietnam trip & your visit to Hoi An. Have you been to other parts of Vietnam as well?

I returned from Vietnam on April 15, after 3 weeks there and in Cambodia. In Vietnam I used vietnamstay, and it was reliable and efficient (only used it for accommodation and airport pickups). I also highly recommend it.

Thanks for all your input and stories.

Did you pay vietnam stay by cash or credit card?

Eek

Credit card. I did everything by internet while I was on the road. Sometimes they required credit card details, and they subsequently emailed me a voucher attachment for the hotel. Sometimes they simply made the booking, and I paid the hotel direct via credit card when I checked out. The airport pick-ups were great.