Travel Review: Luxury Southeast Asia Trip, Cambodia & Vietnam, Hanoi, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh, Culture & History

Four of us  travelled to Cambodia and Vietnam for three and half weeks on a tour organized by this travel company. Everything went very smoothly, picked up easily at airports and all drivers and guides were on time. The company was very responsive to our requests for minor changes in either the schedule or time. Every guide had excellent English and all were very knowledgable about the country and culture. The accommodations were excellent, although the rooms in Hanoi  and Ho Chi Minh City were a bit small. Outside of the city they were exceptional. We especially loved the hotel in Cambodia- outstanding service and staff  in a beautiful setting. We spent time in the south, central and north of Vietnam and internal flights were well organized. We had several food restrictions and the guides very nicely passed these on to each restaurant. 

We would have only two suggestions: in several restaurants there was a set menu and we found that there was far too much food for the four of us and we much preferred the times when we could order our own food. Although the restaurants were lovely and the food excellent it was clear that they were designed to cater to tourists. We would have likely to have had the opportunity to experience more " local restaurants". The second suggestion which may be particular to our group would be to have less scheduled time and more time for wandering. In the cities especially we found that we were rushing from place to place and never really got to enjoy each setting. Outside of the big cities there was more time to experience the countryside and the people and we really enjoyed this.  We had one less than stellar guide in Hue, the scheduled guide was frequently on his cell phone and did the bare minimum. He also had to return to Hoi Anh before the end of the tour and asked another guide to take us to the home visit that evening. The replacement guide made us feel very uncomfortable but as we had him for only a short time this was not a significant difficult.  All other guides were superb and shared their knowledge of their countries history and culture.  I would certainly use this tour company again and highly recommend it to anyone planning a visit. The agent who organized the tour was responsive and very easy to deal with.