Very helpful. No problems.
A little disappointed on the hotel choice. Said city view deluxe. The room was very basic with plastic shower hose on tap
As always Fergus and colleagues organised our trip to Vietnam and Australia perfectly. It was seamless.
Still able to assist me when I was in Vietnam. Excellent service
Nicholas Brew was outstanding - from the first phone call I made to a last minute flight change from the Vietnamese airline he was able to make this very important trip to meet long lost family an absolute delight. I literally cannot speak highly enough of him and think everyone needs a Nicholas! DialAFlight is an unexpected revelation to me even after 40 years of independent travel!
Fantastic holiday arranged for us by Travis
Jerry is always helpful
Glen was more than helpful with advice and options. I would and do recommend
Bradley and team excellent as ever. I always use DialAFlight you can't go wrong.
Fantastic helpful service. Like you have done over the last 15 years
Vinnie as always planned the trip perfectly.
Fantastic from start to finish, many thanks to Shelley and the team!
Travel plans were made very easy thanks to Jordan Fell
Philippa was excellent as always. Great using her and always a big help.
You created the most perfect trip possible on our first visit to Vietnam. The tour, especially, was perfect and we got to see things we wouldn't have done otherwise in Hanoi and Hoi An. The only "miss" was the luxury hotel in Cam Ranh - which was stunning, and with beds that were like floating on a cloud - but we were very far from anything and had to use their restaurants, charging UK prices. Overall you saved me days of angst trying to put my own trip together and came up trumps for our holiday.
Wonderful service, very helpful and very patient staff. It can't be better. All excellent.
Noah and his tremendous, outstanding work has done it yet AGAIN. He made my 40th birthday special with 20 of my friends to Brazil, my mum's 60th birthday amazing and my 20 years anniversary (together) with my wife and son to Vietnam. I’ll certainly be telling all of my friends and family about DialAFlight!
Edward was very helpful
Please thank Seymour and all the team for helping me with a seemingly ever changing travel schedule.
Hayley arranged our flights to Vietnam and was very helpful and friendly. All documents were sent promptly and it was made very easy, thank you so much. We got a better price then any of the online websites. Will definitely be using again for our next trip in January.
Jim, as always, created the most amazing holiday experience
I would and will be using DialAFlight again. They were super efficient friendly and listened to everyting i wanted.
All went smoothly.
As ever Roger was brilliant. On top of all communications at every step of the process .
Code sharing with BA was disappointing. Their leg of the journey was very below the standards of Qatar.
A fantastic experience from start to finish. Glen was very patient during the planning with me making lots of changes. The trip went so smoothly, with Exo delivering an amazing, flawless experience.
Conrad was always ready to help and easy to get hold of
Connie was very helpful and responsive... couldn't have been better!
Amazing holiday in Vietnam, thank you for your help
Vietnam Airways are not my favourite - lower standard service and equipment.
Vietnam is tricky to pin down. It's colourful but austere; hard-working but playful. And it's impossible to ignore the war that has left an indelible mark, culturally and historically.
This long, slim country of incredible natural beauty has a coastline groaning with inviting sandy stretches and tropical islands off the south-west and southern tip.
'War tourism' is part of the experience, and Americans make up the greatest proportion of Western visitors. But the country has been rebuilt, the trees replanted and the Vietnamese look to the future, not the past. It has one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies and has set its sights on officially becoming a developed nation during the course of 2020. The atmosphere is vibrant and the welcome is smiling.
In the capital Hanoi, where my trip begins, the foggy city is brightened by sprays of peach blossom and kumquat trees.
There's plenty to see – and not nearly enough time to take it all in. Walking solemnly past Ho Chi Minh's body in a glass box guarded by four uniformed men is strange. Visiting the Hanoi Hilton prison, where communists and then GIs were interned, is horrifying.
The late Senator John McCain's jumpsuit, kit and parachute are on show. He was shot down flying a Skyhawk in 1967 and imprisoned in Vietnam until 1973.
There are pictures of GIs eating Thanksgiving dinner, playing pool or cards, smiling. A former PoW, who was held here for nearly six years, told me these photographs were set-ups. This was no holiday camp.
But for many years McCain, who died in 2018, had made a habit of returning to Vietnam and staying in the same room at the Metropole Hotel. On one of my visits a few years ago, I even saw him in the hotel bar.
This wonderful colonial hotel, with its prettily lit outdoor pool, is in the heart of the old city just a short walk from his former prison.
Hanoi is the place to try street food – and it's cheap. The '36 streets and 36 wares' in the Old Quarter, which dates from the 11th century, brim with markets and delicious-smelling brews.
Pop-up food stalls line the pavements. People sit on tiny stools eating from bowls.
We travel further south, to Hue and Hoi An on the central coast. In Hue, you can see the remnants of Vietnam's past when emperors ruled and grand palaces such as the former Imperial Citadel – a Unesco World Heritage Site – and mausoleums were built in their honour. The Tu Duc and Khai Dinh tombs from the Nguyen dynasty are ornate, elaborate and dripping in gold.
At the Tu Duc tomb, there's a large stone tablet with the lament of the emperor, who had 150 concubines yet never managed to produce an heir.
Hoi An is relaxed and bars are filled with gap-yearers. This is the place to have a suit whipped up.
Then it was on to Ho Chi Minh City, still commonly known as Saigon. This sophisticated city is home to millions of scooters that navigate the streets like dancing ants.
There's more war tourism here – from the harrowing War Remnants museum, which focuses on the grisly effects of Agent Orange and the Cu Chi tunnels outside the city.
The prospect of crawling on my hands and knees in the dark puts me off going inside. Just being at the entrance to this extraordinary network system, 124 miles in length, used by the Viet Cong during the war, gives me the shivers.
Back in town you can wander hassle-free, day or night. The market is hot, sticky and heady. In the surrounding streets, you can have a pedicure for a few pounds.
But Saigon also does high-end pampering beautifully. The Park Hyatt has city glamour. The wonderful swimming pool, three floors up and surrounded by trees, is long enough to do decent laps.
If you want to feel the sand between your perfectly manicured toes, Saigon is any easy jumping-off point for islands off the South and South-West coast such as Con Dao and Phu Quoc.
At Con Dao the Six Senses resort is perched discreetly on a mile-long beach. Con Dao was once a prison island, set up by the French in 1861, and you can still visit the great, eerie buildings in the main town.
You can walk, run, swim, cycle, do all manner of water sports and even learn how to cook the fragrant Vietnamese delicacies we've been enjoying.
Relaxation is the theme. By the end of the week, I feel well-nourished in mind and body – and more than ready to sing the praises of this captivating country.
First published in the Daily Mail - January 2020
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