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.
Wonderful service, very helpful and very patient staff. It can't be better. All excellent.
Edward was very helpful
As ever Roger was brilliant. On top of all communications at every step of the process .
Connie was very helpful and responsive... couldn't have been better!
Thank you Graham and your team
As always, a very good service by competent people
Graham was very helpful and got us a good deal
Organised our trip very well. Good choice of hotels and transfers faultless. I would recommend the company without reservation. Staff answered questions with confidence and reassured us over any concerns.
Very happy with my flight
I’ve recently returned from a 47-day trip to Queensland and Western Australia, with a cheeky six-night trip to Ho Chi Minh City in the middle of it. As well as flights, the numerous hotel bookings and three different car hires were all booked by Michelle. Everything was spot-on! It’s 20 years since I first rang DialAFlight looking for information for a trip to Hong Kong. Michelle answered the phone that day and since then I’ve used her for all of my long haul trips. I can’t imagine using anyone else.
A special thanks to Calvin Ali. Been superb.
As always with Megan Quesada it went perfectly, despite my having to change flight details. Megan took it in her stride. Her suggestion for me to upgrade to Premium Economy on the return flight was well worth it.
Thank you so much Darren and colleagues for your help to make sure everything ran smoothly for our first holiday in 3 1/2 years. Vietnam was incredible. We absolutely will recommend you and will be contacting you in the next few weeks to organise our Thailand flights.
Graham was brilliant as usual!
Professional and pleasant staff
Always answered the phone - well done
Monika Jain is so professional, efficient and friendly. I completely trust this company and have the utmost confidence that if a problem occurs it will be resolved. I wouldn’t book with anyone else!
Very helpful, can’t fault you
Very, very helpful team. One of our party had to change her date and Trevor and team were hugely supportive and helpful.
Seymour is an absolute asset to your company - he was brilliant!
Callum Patel is a credit to your company - he always makes using DialAflight a true pleasure
All as expected. Good communication.
Very helpful and prompt responses from you as always. I have already recommended you to friends
I have been with DialAFlight for a few years and I am always very happy and satisfied with them. It is the best service and support you can have.
Excellent as always
Ho Chi Minh City, known as Saigon until the end of the Vietnam War, is a vast contradiction. Despite communist rule, its teeming residents are enthusiastic capitalists offering an Aladdin's cave of goods from tumbledown shops.
Whole families work night and day preparing mouth-watering food in thousands of impromptu pavement restaurants, providing the most delicious street food in the world.
As it happens, the last days of the city under its former name was recently highlighted in Britain, when Miss Saigon the musical celebrated its 25th anniversary with a nationwide cinema performance of the West End show.
In Ho Chi Minh City there is a wonderful range when it comes to choosing where to stay. Not-withstanding its ramshackle appearance, anarchic traffic and jumbled shops, the city has benefited hugely from investment in hotels from the former enemy America.
The colonial Saigon Grand Hotel has added a 20-storey new wing but I was happy to stay in the old part, for the atmosphere.
Similarly, one's spoilt for choice as far as eating and drinking is concerned. A good start is to whizz to the 20th floor of the Saigon Grand and get an outside table at the Terrace Café. Here you can enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail for 100,000 dong (about £3.50) and admire the view of the Saigon River far below.
For a sublime Vietnamese meal, you can do a lot worse than to book a table at Maxims in Dong Khoi Street, where you will feel more of a native. The trendy Vietnamese younger set congregate at The Deck on the west bank of the river.
Night markets
The city turned out to be some-thing of a shopping heaven too. A visit to the My Hoa Night Market on Cao Thang Road is an essential part of the itinerary. With 250 stalls lining the street there is an amazing range of cheap designer goods. But don't forget, you must haggle - even if you're a committed non-haggler, this is one time you must be brave and put on a good show.
A friend and I decided a pincer movement was the best tactic, so we joined forces to bring down the cost of three Mulberry purses to 2.2 million dong - that's £25 each. It was a fearsome display of no-nonsense negotiating.
Were the purses genuine Mulberry? What do you think? But they were certainly genuine bargains.
There are some unusual options available for getting about. One of them is to take a tour aboard a former U.S. military Jeep. The powerful vehicle seemed to scythe effortlessly through the extraordinary suicidal stew of motorcyclists.
Near the top of the list of what to see are the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Re-Unification Palace, built by the French. The latter became the HQ of the country's beleaguered puppet presidents that were installed by the Americans.
Nearby is the former U.S. Embassy, where thousands of terrified Saigon residents shook the gates, begging for entry as the last U.S. helicopters fled in 1975. The world looked on in fascinated horror at the images of desperate people attempting to scale the walls and fences of the embassy compound, as communist forces closed in on the city.
U.S. Marines held back the terrified crowds as helicopters took Americans and many Vietnamese who feared reprisals from the communist forces first to the airport and later to ships of America's Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea.
The capture of the city on April 30 was preceded by the evacuation of almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians associated with the southern regime. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history.
The contrast now in some parts of the city with those frantic days is poignant in the extreme. For calm and peace you should make your way to the Jade Emperor pagoda, where Buddhists offer incense, food and prayers.
And close by is the Vietnam War Remnants Museum, which provides a harrowing chronicle of the death and destruction inflicted on the Vietnamese.
Cu Chi Tunnels
It's possible, although those who suffer from claustrophobia should be warned, to explore the Viet Cong's tunnels. Viet Cong guerrillas hid and fought in a warren of tunnels just outside the city.
You can go underground and see how they evaded the might of the U.S. Marines. On display are the horrific man traps used to kill the enemy, including hidden pits filled with razor sharp pointed bamboo sticks. You can also indulge, if you wish, in target practice with M60 carbines and machine guns used in the war.
This is a city that has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. But it is right that, while celebrating its vibrancy and warmth, its traumatic recent past should never be forgotten.
First published in the Daily Mail - February 2017
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