We are a few weeks back from our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia trip with Thomson Family Adventures, and the whole experience was awesome. This is our second trip with TFA and pre-trip service, itinerary and execution has been fantastic. What we really appreciated about this trip and TFA are:
--We booked this trip as part of group tour. It is billed as a Vietnam Culinary Adventure, and we added on the Cambodia extension. Turns out, we were the only 3 (2 adults and 16 y/o son) that booked the tour. So, it turned into a private tour. We weren’t sure how this would work, but it turned out great. Our guide in Vietnam was fantastic (more about that later). He travelled through Vietnam with us. Same for our guide in Cambodia.
--One of the things I like about TFA is the pre-trip touch bases. After booking your trip, you work with the same trip specialist for questions, specific needs (e.g., food allergies), any modifications you may want to make to the itinerary, etc. About every month coming up on your trip you get a quick email with either reminders of your trip or any due dates upcoming. About 3 weeks before the trip, they send final paperwork and some swag (you get to pick what you want from a small catalogue). Then about a week later they will set up a call with the trip specialist (if you want) to answer any questions you may have about the trip, itinerary, etc. After a while, you really feel like you know your trip specialist and they are as invested in your trip as you are.
--The thing that drew us to this tour of Vietnam was the diversity of the itinerary. In particular, was the 3-day;2-night tour of Halong Bay. It did not disappoint. The “junket” and amenities on board were incredible. Activities over the couple of days included kayaking, swimming, going through a cave, and biking to a village, along with cruising through the bay. We were in a part of the area where there were not a lot of other tourist. For most of the cruise no other boats were visible. Even when we “parked” over night there were no more than 4 or 5 other boats in the area. The crew said other parts are much more crowded. Other parts of this excursion do follow much of the Vietnam
ABD (Saigon, Hoi An, Hanoi, and Siem Reap)-we didn’t go to Laos. There was a really good mix of activities in the cities, but also getting out into the smaller villages and spending time with some of the local people. We found the people of Vietnam to be wonderful, caring people with a great sense of humor. In many cases, although we didn’t share a common language, we found ourselves laughing along with the people.
--For Cambodia our main motivation was to go to Angkor Wat and the temple area. We went and it was great. But again, the most meaningful things were some of the lesser known (to us anyways) activities. For example, we went to the Apopo center. This is a place where rats are trained to sniff out land landmines and unexploded ordinances. Cambodia still has >2 million landmines and unexploded ordinances, and large portions of land cannot be used until cleared. Basically, what would take a human 3 days to do, can be done by a rat in 4 hours.
--This ended up being a private tour which afforded a lot of flexibility to adjust the itinerary and do things we may not have been able to do with a group of 30-40. For example, Marble Mountain was not on the original itinerary, but we were able to add it without skipping any other activity. Our guide just adjusted a few things. We were able to go to the top of the old CIA building where the last helicopter took off during the Vietnam war. It took a little cajoling with the security guard as it is normally not open to the public, but our guide made it happen.
--There are often posts about small groups vs. large groups. For us, our bias has shifted from the large groups to small group or private. We have found that what we value in the experience/adventure has shifted over the years. Aside from the flexibility, we have found that we can get much more in-depth on the activity or experience in a smaller group. As an example, the day of our cooking lesson in Vietnam, we were able to go into the markets with the chef who would be leading the class and shop for our food. He explained what he looks for when he is shopping in the markets. Given the size and space in the markets, this is possible only with a small group. As our son has matured (and his attention span increased), what we value in the adventure has shifted to the more intimate experiences. Five years ago, he would have been bored after 2 minutes of walking through a market with a chef talking about buying food.
--Both of our guides were fantastic. We spent 13 days with our guide in Vietnam and 3 days with our guide in Cambodia. Our guide in Vietnam simply made everything we asked for happen. Even if we saw something on a van ride, and commented about it, we would find ourselves at that stop the next day even though it was not on the itinerary. He would simply squeeze it in. He picked up on a lot of thing as well. For example, my wife likes to keep the ticket stubs to the sites and places we go on a trip. It then becomes part of the scrapbook/photo album. Our guide noticed this after the first day, and on the last day presented her with a scrapbook of all the ticket stubs. As another example, we had these coconut cookies or crackers that we really liked. We mentioned we couldn’t find them in Hanoi and he said they were only available in Saigon. No big deal for us, but when we saw him the last day, he had 5 cases of these cookies shipped up to Hanoi for us. He just really exemplified “can do”. Both guides were able to tell stories about the history of their country that captivated you, and we had great conversations about what it is like in America and how much of their perception is formed by the movies.
--This was billed as a Culinary Adventure, and it was certainly that. I won’t go into everything we ate, but we tried many of the local “specialties”. One bit of feedback we gave to Thomson was that there really wasn’t much of a selection of western food (other than breakfast buffets). We understood that there was a food focus to the tour, but families with younger children may need a few more western meal options scattered throughout the tour. On this tour, most days we could order from the menu, however, a few days were set menus (e.g., the food tour on a vespa).
--In terms of hotels, I think ABD tends to stay at higher end hotels than Thomson. Although, for this tour I’d say the hotels are pretty comparable. In fact, in Siem Reap we stay at the same hotel. We saw the ABD group there. In Saigon, the ABD hotel may be a little more upscale. I’d say the resort in Hoi An and the hotels in Hanoi are pretty comparable.
We knew going in that it would be hot and humid, but there is no real way to prepare for it. Can't tell you how many bottles of water/day we drank. After a few days though we found that we adjusted. But getting into AC certainly helped.
