Excellent Travel Experience
First, we have to thank Mavis Jiang, our patient, kind, creative and informed travel consultant, for responding quickly and intelligently to our many travel concerns and questions. My husband and I already had confirmed plans for our granddaughter’s Indochina wedding and it just seemed logical to spend an extra week or two exploring Indochina. After researching many travel companies, several we had already used for past cruises, tours, etc., we reached out to the companies most appropriate for our Indochina travel interests. Out of all of the tour companies I contacted, Mavis was the first to respond and the only one who could give me intelligently definitive answers to specific questions about visas, transportation, food, hotels, specific highlights, time tables, guides, etc. Choosing Mavis and Odyssey Tours was a no-brainer and I am so grateful that we did! With Mavis’s help, we chose the 10 day Vietnam tour from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). In addition to questions about everything from weather to money, I asked Mavis to modify our itinerary to include additional points of interest not on the schedule. She always responded quickly with detailed answers, was always respectful in spite of my inane questions, and worked with us to create our personalized tour. Mavis carefully planned every detail of our modified tour from who would meet us at the airports, to hotels and activities, to who would deliver us back to the airports and help us through check-ins. She took all the stress and worry out of travel. We love Mavis! To complicate the already modified schedule, my husband suffered a fall prior to our Vietnam tour and arrived in Hanoi in a wheel chair. Mr. Vinh (Hungving), our remarkable guide, met us at the airport with an Odyssey identification sign. Much to our relief, he quickly assessed the situation and took charge. During our four days in Hanoi, the personable, knowledgeable and incredibly kind Mr. Vinh became a dear friend who devotedly watched over my husband, willingly made necessary schedule adjustments, carefully oversaw leg injuries and helped with mobility limitations during our tour of the many fascinating sights in Hanoi. Before we left Hanoi, my fatigued husband and Mr. Trung, our wonderful driver, sat in the air conditioned van with chocolates and sodas, while Mr. Vinh surprised me with an unscheduled tour of the amazing Bat Trang ceramics village. What a treat! Remarkable pottery, traditional and fanciful creations for every taste. Our dear tour guide Mr. Vinh, our time in Hanoi and our magical overnight Ha Long Bay cruise are some of our most treasured memories. From Hanoi we flew to the Danang Airport where Mr. Nguyen, who grew up in beautiful Hoi An and was a wealth of knowledge, and our driver Mr. Nhat delivered us to our picturesque La Siesta Resort and Spa in Hoi An. The La Siesta staff was delightfully attentive, food was excellent, the room was spacious and comfortable, making our stay there one of our best experiences in any hotel anywhere in the world. The La Siesta was the perfect setting for my husband to relax and enjoy a little down time, while erudite Mr. Nguyen took me on a private tour of the beguiling Hoi An, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Highlights included colorful silk lanterns, fun downtown shops, organic gardens, delicious foods, the famous Japanese Bridge, an unforgettable ride in a basket boat through a water coconut forest and a tour through a historic Hoi An home belonging to one of Mr. Nguyen’s friends. I was very thankful for Mr. Nguyen, who was the perfect companion and guide for my husband-less day. Thanks to a lot of extra rides by our kind driver, the next day my husband was able to join us for the market tour, enjoyable cooking class, meeting new friends and a delicious lunch. We ended the evening on our own celebrating Hoi An’s colorfully unforgettable Full Moon Lantern Festival. We were charmed by the countryside, people and city, and hope to return to Hoi An someday for a longer visit. Our last leg of the tour took us to Ho Chi Minh City. Mr. Paul, our guide, was unable to meet us at the airport, but had another guide and our competent driver, Mr. Dien, meet us. We missed the warm welcome we had from Mr. Vinh, Mr. Nguyen and from the prior hotels, but enjoyed Mr. Paul’s thoughtful introductions the next morning. I spent my first day full day in Ho Chi Minh City without my husband, touring the Cu Chi Tunnels, Reunification Palace, markets, and the Fine Arts Museum. Again, I was grateful to have a congenial and knowledgeable guide with me. The next day, flexible and accommodating, Mr. Paul and our capable driver Mr. Dien added electronics stores and markets to our schedule to my engineer husband’s delight, and modified our Mekong Delta day to include less strenuous activities for my husband plus our pre-scheduled events for me. In addition, the ingenious Mr. Dien and Mr. Paul rigged up an extra step for our van that made entering and exiting the van much easier for my husband. Our last few days with Mr. Paul and Mr. Dien left us wanting more time in Vietnam. Vietnam has been on our travel list for some time, but we have been apprehensive about visiting another communist country. Our Russian bus tour with another travel company about ten years ago included “bush stops” in place of bathrooms, limited and sometimes unpalatable food choices (one tour member ending up overnight in a hospital…), “4-star” hotels with only cold water, rigid schedules… We were pleasantly surprised by the clean accommodations in Vietnam, the delicious variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, enjoyable traditional dishes and wonderful foods, and the 4-star hotels everywhere we went. Having highly qualified English-speaking personal guides, skilled drivers, a tour consultant who actually checked in with us during our tour to make sure everything was okay (thank you Mavis!), and a flexible itinerary made our Odyssey Tour, in spite of my husband’s mobility challenges, one of our best and most wonderfully memorable trips ever. We came home to the States with so many good memories, hundreds of fabulous photos, and wanting to take another trip with Odyssey Tours. In all ways an excellent travel experience that we highly recommend.