Aurora Travel

Dear Aurora Travel,

I take great pleasure in providing some feed back on our recent visit to your beautiful country.

As you may be aware compared to other S.E Asian destinations, Vietnam is still not an extremely popular tourist destination to the Australians. How ever I am confident this will change very soon and there will be a great influx of tourists from Australia & other western countries, since Vietnam has so much to offer.

Firstly on behalf of my wife and our friends Percy & Kanthi I wish to thank you for arranging such a varied & enjoyable tour for the short duration. We all thought another additional 3 to 4 days would have been good. You organised all aspects of our tour in a very professional manner and I thank you for that.

Without going into too much detail some of the highlights of our tour would be as follows:
Visit to the war museum was a great eye opener. A great sense of sadness was felt by all of us for the torment your people have gone through. I hope every visitor to Vietnam spends some time at this venue to get an understanding on affects of War.
The cruise on the Saigon River, overnight cruise on Jasmine at Ha Long Bay visiting the floating village & other natural lime stone Islands was magical. Preservation of this bay in a pristine condition is commendable. The boat crise along Mekong Delta exploring the natural water ways and lush greenery was a pleasurable experience. In a world where all countries including Australia is experiencing a severe shortages of water; to see such vast amounts of water every where in Vietnam is a blessing.

Nha Trang beach is magical; we all enjoyed a dip in the Sea in the morning hours. The hotel we stayed at 'Nha Trang Lodge' is located in such a beautiful spot, how ever compared to the other hotels we stayed at, the service & facilities at this particular venue was poor. Grand Hotel in Saigon & Hoi An Beach resort were excellent.
All Domestic flights through Air Vietnam were very good, on schedule and cheap ! The coaches, drivers & your Tour Guides were excellent. Special mention to your Tour guide at Danang ; he was very knowledgeable, and extremely courteous. All of them were on time and very patient. May I suggest that if you can provide cheap polystyrene boxes (we call an Esky) to keep the water bottles & face wipes cold it will be very refreshing. The tour guide at Danang had one in the coach.

As a general comment I would like to say Vietnam overall is a beautiful country with friendly people ; a vast variety of food to cater for all tastes.
Having travelled to many countries all over the world including Americas, Europe, S.E Asia etc I am happy to note every place we visited in Vietnam is clean, people are clean & above all we felt safe walking along the streets. Un fortunately this is not the case with so many other countries.

We have no hesitation in recommending Aurora as a great Tour agency to any prospective tourists.
In closing let me say we hope to re visit Vietnam in the near future.

If you need any additional details of a particular aspect of the tour pl. do not hesitate to let me know.

Regards,
Eric Perera

Dear Aurora Travel,

I am now back at work after what certainly was a spectacular holiday!! The whole Vietnam experience was special and the memories of the Halong Bay Cruise will remain forever!!

Thank you so much for making all the arrangements which were top class ! We certainly want to visit Vietnam again and will contact you for the necessary assistance.

Warmest regards,

Dato' Dr. Venugopal

Dear Ms Lisa Le,

I am sorry for the delay in answering the email. Our teaching responsibilities take up a lot of time.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour with Aurora Travel. First, Mr. Pham was very attentive to our questions. It was first time we had booked a tour and he was very helpful.. When we asked to add another day in Hanoi, he immediately added it. Also, when we asked for a change in HCMC he again helped us.

Neither one of us eat meat of chicken. We let Mr. Pham know before we arrived and each meal we had used only vegetables, fruit, seafood, and fish. It was delicious. I had also asked if we could eat at KOTO and we thoroughly enjoyed the food and the waiters and waitresses. All the meals were outstanding except the one on the Mekong Delta. It was a charming site but the food was not that good. It seemed to us that they didn't know how to prepare a fine lunch for people who did not eat meat or chicken.

Our guides were knowledgeable about the history of Vietnam and the people, which was important because we have a great interest in history. Even though two were young, they shared with us the stories of their families during the war with US. Before we went to some sites they did say that we might think some of the pictures or explanations were too critical of the French and the Americans. We did not think it was propaganda but we appreciated their care of us.

A typhoon had just hit Hoi An two days before we arrived. This made it more difficult for our guide but he showed us many sights. In my letter that I gave him as we were leaving from the airport, I noted that we would have preferred to go to less places that tried to sell us something. We had told him this the day before and he immediately made sure that we went only to sights such as the Temple. I particularly liked the Cham museum in Danang. He provided us with interesting information and gave us time to roam and take photos. It was a wonderful experience.

We were fortunate to be in Vietnam during the harvesting of the rice. When we asked to take photos, both the drivers and the guides were very attentive to helping us. Also, in the south, we asked to know more about the rubber plantations and to take photos, which was immediately done. We liked the trips that took us out of the cities and into the countryside.

The hotels in Hanoi and in Hoi An were wonderful. Our room in Hoi An had a balcony and looked out over the river. We thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant restaurants in these two cities in which we had delicious breakfasts. We were disappointed in the Metropole. The first morning as we were taking the elevator down to the restaurant, a cockroach ran across the floor of the elevator.

In all three cities the guides and drivers made sure that we were at the airport at the time we requested. I want to complement the drivers. We always felt safe. They drove with skill in what we thought were difficult driving situations.

To everyone with whom we have shared our memories of Vietnam, we also share our positive experience with Aurora Travel. Again, Mr. Pham provided us with guidance and was always available to answer questions, including guidance on tipping. It was wonderful to be able to meet him when we were in HCMC.

As I noted earlier, this was the first time we had booked a tour. It took us a short while to adjust to having a guide with us to immediately answer questions, to get tickets and escort us to our sits or act as a guide at a museum, or, with the help of the driver, to get us from one sight to the next. We had hoped to see and learn a lot about Vietnam in the few days we had and this tour made it possible.

If you have specific questions, please contact us.

Thank you, Gail and Robert Craig

Dear Lisa and Jody,

Sorry for the late response but coming back from Vietnam it was immediately busy in Holland with work, school etc.

Looking back to our trip to Vietnam we had a really good time and this was for a great deal thanks to Aurora.

You really arranged all our hotels, transfers and tours great. We enjoyed all our tours very much. We had a great time. Thank you.

Coming back in Holland my parents really liked our stories and decided to go to
Vietnam in March.

I would like you to book all the hotels, transfers and tours for them so I will contact you soon.

Aurora, thanks for all your great help.

Best reagards,
Jonneke Huisman

Thank you for a very interesting holiday in Cambodia and Vietnam!

We were very impressed by the service provided by Aurora Travel. All of the guides were very friendly and helpful, and all of the arrangements for travelling between cities went smoothly. We were especially pleased that you managed to re-arrange the first couple of days of our itinerary because of our late arrival in Phnom Penh. Fortunately we did not miss very much.

With the exception of the Saigon Metropole (which we weren’t too keen on) all the hotels were excellent. We especially liked the Hoi An Beach resort and the Royal Angkor Resort.

We found Vietnam incredibly busy: in the UK the traffic is nowhere near as chaotic (even central London seems peaceful compared with Hanoi and HCMC). As a result we enjoyed the relative peace of Hoi An and would have liked to have spent longer there.

Thanks once again. We would certainly recommend Aurora to anyone visiting Indochina.