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.
Above and beyond expectations
Abbie's emails were very helpful and much appreciated.
Thank you Graham and your team
As always, a very good service by competent people
Everything went very smoothly and hotels were in an excellent location. Well done Dennis and Stan
Couldn't ask for a better experience. Harriet and Lucas were very helpful sorting out our itinerary which worked perfectly. Everything ran on time as in the itinerary and we stayed in some great hotels and other accommodation.
We use DialAFlight for all flight bookings and increasingly hotels and taxi pick ups. It all works!
I had a wonderful holiday and would always choose DialAFlight to travel with.
Graham was very helpful and got us a good deal
We have been so impressed with your company and good to know we had a contact throughout if needed.
This was not the golden age of travel. Our soft-sleeper carriage had basic bedding and no shower – just a shared sink and one Western-style WC. On a table between the bunks was 'breakfast': cheesy crackers, crisps, a yoghurt drink and a tin of mixed kidney-type beans.
But what our train lacked in luxury was more than made up for by the raw experience of seeing Vietnam up close and personal, as the single-track line weaved through city centres and so close to houses and motorists that you could almost reach out and shake hands.
There were 40 of us on our rail tour from Hanoi to Saigon via iconic Halong Bay, then by speedboat up the Mekong Delta into Cambodia. We met as strangers – seven singles, one tour manager and the rest married couples – but friendships were quickly made.
On the way to Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, we passed lush rice fields, the 'hedges' a network of irrigation channels. Water buffalo still plough the land.
Our hotel was minutes from Hoa Lo Prison – the famed 'Hanoi Hilton' (now a museum) that held American prisoners of war in the Seventies, including 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.
A coach tour took in Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, modelled on Lenin's tomb in Moscow, and the humble stilt house where 'Uncle Ho' lived.
Travelling in traditional tuk-tuks gave us a close-up view of the narrow old city streets, where locals eat, drink and chat on little plastic stools, or have streetside pedicures in plastic washing-up bowls. Then there's the scooters. Vietnam (a little larger than Italy) is home to 88million people and 35million mopeds and scooters.
Crossing the road is not for the faint-hearted. Our guide joked that traffic lights were merely 'a suggestion'. The trick, he said, is to look confident and walk on: the traffic will weave around you.
From Hanoi we took a two-day cruise of Halong Bay, with islets of limestone karst pillars rising dramatically from a mist-shrouded sea.
Legend has it the bay was formed when the gods sent dragons to protect Vietnam from invaders. The dragons breathed out jewels, which formed into thousands of islands. Today, it's home to floating fishing villages, rare wildlife and cruise ships.
We visited a floating village, on a sampan rowed by a local girl. Then we boarded the Reunification Railway. You can travel the 1,070 miles from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in 33 hours, but Great Rail Journeys broke it into four days.
We spent one night in a privately run sleeping car aimed at tourists, a notch or two above the regular 'softsleepers'.
Tip: make sure you secure your door. A Vietnamese woman, seeking a free bed, frightened us in the dead of night when she tried to climb into our vacant top bunk.
But mostly we stayed in hotels along the way, all comfortable with great food. Vietnamese cuisine is one of the healthiest in the world, relying on fresh ingredients and simple flavourings. In the town of Hoi An, my friend Ruth and I went shopping. Ruth had four perfect copies of a favourite dress made in different fabrics, and a young shoe shop girl insisted I hop on the back of her moped – 'Don't worry, I'm a very safe driver' – so I could get another pair of shoes from my hotel while they copied the ones I was wearing.
Our last leg took us into Cambodia along the Mekong river in a speed boat, where we witnessed the harshness of rural life, with stilt shanty houses lacking both running water and electricity.
Elsewhere was evidence of a coming modernity, with the cities leading the way. Even on our train, we got a sense of what might soon be.
My advice is to catch that Reunification Train while you can – before the country changes beyond all recognition. It's charming now, just as it is.
First published in the Daily Mail - August 2016
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