From Spain

Dear Mr. Phi:

I would hereby like to comment some points of our recent journey to Vietnam and Cambodia.

            Frist of all, appreciate your kind wellcome to us with presents for everybody. That was really lovely.

            On the whole the trip was great although there are some points I would like to highlight and others that I think you should take better care of them as as we informed you we have given your name to friends of ours who we know have already contacted you and others that we will possitively give them your name.

On the other side, some of us are planning for the end of this year a trip to Thailand and as I have seen in your card that you also organize that area we will need your help there.

            I'll point out a short statement of each of the cities:

 HANOI: A warm greeting from Lan, her mother Yen and of course, as I mentioned before, from Mr. Phi at the Hotel with presents for everybody as well as  information of the country.

We also had an upgrading at the Melia Hotel, which was lovely. The hotel was very good, I don't think it is worth spending more money in a better hotel.

Yen showed us the city the next day and the day after drove us to Halong Bay.

Guide YEN: I must mention that her spanish was very good, she was also very kind and always trying to please us. She even took us back to Hanoi for shopping as we had a long wait at the airport to take our flight to Hue.

The driver was good and the van perfect.

HALONG BAY: Magical, this was great. The Jasmine Junk was a MUST. We had a great time at the Bay, the personal on board the Jasmine were very kind, kayaking was fun and it's a pity that we only spent one night on board. It is really worth spending two days on board.

HUE: Here we were greeted by Phuc. We were droven to the Hotel. The Imperial hotel was OK, the staff were very kind. Hue is lovely but I think we spent enough time there, just one day. The next day Phuc drove us to Hoian.

We had to change the van, I think it was 3 times as there was no A/C. The drivers were good.

            Unfortunately the weather was not good, so we drove through the High van Pass and saw nothing, all cloudy.

HOI AN: When we reached the hotel, we didn't have the rooms. We were about to call you but Miss Anne at the Palm Garden was very kind and helped us solve this problem as best as she could.

Mr. Phi, the first rooms that we had, they were superior ocean view. I must say that "ocean View" here was just a slight sight of the sea. We paid the difference to change to a better room. I think you should mention this to your future clients as for a little more money the difference is BIG.

Unfortunately the weather was still bad and its a pity in this sea side hotel not to be able to use the pool and the beach.

Anyways, Hoi An is beatiful and we liked our stay there.

I think it is fair mention that here we stayed 3 days, 2 of them were free. Phuc said that he had no problem in staying at Hoi An. He organized a trip to the Marble Mountain and was really very kind and did everything to please us.

Guide PHUC: The best guide of all the trip. A very kind person who is working hard on his spanish. He did more that he had to in order to please us and even bought us rice for all of us and told us what we had to do in order to plant it. EXCELLENT.

Mr. Phi, we would like to obtain his email as we would like to send him a few words of appreciation in spanish. I think he would like that.

Please send it to me.

We gave Phuc a good tip, and paid the van too. He really deserved it.

The last day at Hoi An, another guide took care of us and drove us to Danang airport.

HO CHI MIN: Here we were greeted by Jud. Unfortunately it was pouring when we arrived to Saigon. Jud drove us to the hotel as it was impossible to see anything in the city. I made a mistake choosing the Caravelle Hotel. We did not like it. The staff at the front desk were not very polite. And here my second mistake was that I recommend another day in this city. We liked Saigon and I think it is worth spending one more day.

The next day Jud picked us up in the morning to go to the Mekong Delta. This was a real disaster. After a 2 1/2 hours drive to the Mekong we boarded a small boat. We approached a canal and after entering the canal for 5 minutes the boat could not go ahead. I think thay chose the worst canal of all. The boat could not turn around so the driver had to jump into the river and hull the boat backwards. THIS WAS REALLY AWFUL. We told Jud this was not worth our trip to the Mekong. She took us to a candy factory and there we waited until she found another boat. I think this was a waste of time. When the boat arrived we went around a big canal and back to the bus. I THINK THIS IS NOT WORTH DOING. I suggest that maybe spending a night at the Mekong would change the trip, but really all the time we spent driving to and back from the Mekong againsts the time spent there and what we saw WAS NOT WORTH GOING.

On our way back, we stopped at the Cao daism temple. I also think it is not interesting.

The next day, Jud picked us up in the morning, drove us to Notre Dame and to the Post Office and then dropped us at the airport.

Guide JUD: Her spanish was good but the planning of our visit poor.

The van was OK but I must mention that the driver was not a very kind person.

SIEM REAP: We were greeted by Oani. Unfortunately we had problems from the beginning. The van was far too small for the six of us with our luggage. We told Oani to solve this for the day we had to leave. He did so.

The hotel was FABULOUS, the staff were very kind, the rooms amazing, the pool BEAUTIFUL. Everything was great in the Residence d'Angkor. To put a BUT I could only say that the service was a bit too slow. We ordered our lunch at the pool and it always took too long. But on the whole EXCELLENT.

Siem Reap was lovely and we spent 3 great days there.

BUT I HAVE TO MENTION that we are not very please with our guide there. His name was Oani.

(I don't know if I am spelling the names correctly, but they sound as I am writting them).

            First of all, we have not seen all the temples we had on our programm. Even we have not seen the temples completely. He took us to the Preah Khan temple and afterwards we realized we had skipped half of the temple. The most lovely part of the temple.

Second, we told him we wanted to see the sunrise at the Thom Wat. He first said it was not worth the view but as we insisted he said we had to pay extra charge, (which we of course paid) to the driver.

I am surprised that as we visited the temples from 6 am (only the day of the sunrise we met at 4:30) to 10:30 or 11 am. Then they dropped us at the hotel to rest until 3:30pm when we went to see another temple and back to the hotel. I THINK WE COULD HAVE SEEN MANY MORE TEMPLES. I'TS A PITY.

            Anyways, as I said on the whole the trip was wonderful and we all appreciate your help. We will give our friends who are going now several hints for their journey.

Thanks once again and we will contact you for our trip to Thailand.

Best regards,

Belén Castro y sus amigos