We are travelling home from Da Nang airport – Singapore – Perth with Singapore Airlines on their $0 return flights. We generally have a good experience travelling with them although once again had to queue at the airport to show our visa date….this time to get the boarding pass. I do not enjoy that part at all about Vietnam!
In Da Nang we accessed the Orchid Lounge which takes priority pass ($27USD per person if paying directly) but in Singapore the stopover is only 2hrs so we will wander and then go to the gate. The orchid lounge was very similar to all the other “pay per use” ones we have been in although it is definitely one of the nicer ones! Comfy seats and snacks, drinks and power points are abundant. I can also lay down or put my feet up when we use the lounges if needed so for me it’s worth it when the wait exceeds 2hrs.
Home arrival time is midnight tonight…and I have a work meeting at 8:30am tomorrow. Then I fly to Brisbane the next day for a week at a conference. Lucky me! Also travelling with this sunburn is hideously uncomfortable. Do not recommend.
We got a lovely Singapore sky on our final leg!
Our Little Vietnam Tours experience
When initially looking into travelling for almost a month in Vietnam we ran into a few early issues.
1. We first looked at intrepid as we have been on their tours before. We quickly learned that their Vietnam tours are very heavy on the walking (an issue for me due to spinal condition) and they all included multiple overnight trains
2. The overnight trains were a hard no for me. I know they are an experience but a combo of anxiety, spinal pain and having to pee a lot (toilets are disgusting on these) meant they just were not going to work
3. Having started to adapt to travelling with a physical issue now (and being a lot more confident in saying that) i was aware the medical systems in Vietnam aren’t great. Unlike Thailand and Indonesia who have high quality private hospitals covered by our travel insurance, that’s not a thing here.
All of those combined meant I started to look at other options which was when I came across Little Vietnam Tours https://www.littlevietnamtours.com run by Annie (who is Vietnamese) and her husband (who I think is American). Annie works with you on a personalised itinerary, she books everything for you and arranges a consistent guide in each region. Did it feel a bit elitist? Yep. Did we both struggle with telling the guide when we wanted something different so we didn’t hurt their feelings? Definitely. Was it good value? Absolutely. It included all visiting/tourist site aspects of the intrepid tour + much better accomodation + private tours and came in slightly cheaper! We also got excellent restaurant recommendations in each place that were “local”.
Positives of this approach:
⁃ We knew the guides and drivers were paid properly by an ethical company
⁃ The restaurant recommendations were all spot on. They were worth their weight in gold!
⁃ Everything was done for us. When I had a question I just flicked a quick message and got a reply within a few mins. We also had contacts if we needed for an emergency so we were reassured we would have an English/Vietnamese translator if needed
⁃ They organised an itinerary that made sense in terms of where we went and when, how we got around and the order of “visits” in each place. They did this with what I wanted in mind, for example most people got south to north or north to south…but we knew we wanted to finish centrally for the beach stay. She made it work south – north – central!
⁃ We had a hotel issue at An Bang and Annie was able to speak with the manager about it which helped to get across our concerns and work towards a resolution
Challenges specific to us:
⁃ we had one guide we just didn’t vibe well with. That was a bit awkward as we had the same one for three days. We also had a guide we felt was not representative of the company’s usual quality. That guide didn’t listen to us, expected us to buy lunch every day for him (not an issue, but not discussed at all!) and took us to see all his mates shops in the markets which really got to B. He also took lots of photos of us with his own phone after being asked multiple times not to. We gave appropriate feedback afterwards and he will receive some additional training on expectations
⁃ I didn’t build in enough rest days for us. A private guide is a hell of a lot of mental load in terms of having to talk and engage constantly + the additional physical toll of a stupidly humid location and the physical movement of visiting places. We also found out halfway through that the one guide was not clear I had a back issue even though we had been told they understood. We found this out after a day of climbing 700 stairs and me not being able to walk the next day! That particular activity impacted almost a week of the holiday as I couldn’t get my feet to stop swelling afterwards
⁃ We were not very good at taking advantage of this services if I’m honest. I like to be in control and I struggled to rely on the guide having all the info and contact details for some parts. This also meant I didn’t use some of the extra services eg booking food tours, arranging extra locations, arranging private drivers for additional activities, changing start and finish times to suit me. It didn’t matter how many times someone pointed out I was paying for the individual service and could arrange whatever I wanted…I felt weird about it
Would we do it again?
Good question and one we are considering now for a Thailand trip. I am very glad we did it in Vietnam for the peace of mind and for the really good hotel and restaurant recommendations. I’m a lot more confident travelling in Thailand and I think I would likely organise my own drivers, guides and activities there. I do acknowledge having a consistent guide makes some things easier but we also found it was a big mental load as introverts…which honestly had not occurred to me.
We do highly recommend Annie’s business (Little Vietnam Tours) though. She was very supportive, helped us find things in each place to suit our interests and the accomodation and restaurant suggestions were spot on. I would have searched for hours and still not come up with hotels that were the same quality and in the locations she chose! Local knowledge was definitely an asset.
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