From: Caroline Garstone

Sent: 05 Tháng Giêng 2016 10:17 SA

Dear Diu,

Sorry for the delay in writing back, we hit the road running with Christmas and New Year back here.

I can’t tell you what a marvelous trip we had exploring your country. Congratulations in putting together a great package for us. All the guides were friendly and helped navigate us through Vietnam safely. We particularly loved the first half of our trip (Hanoi- DaLat) as there was plenty to see and activities to do. The food was amazing and at times fed way too much! We enjoyed the nights when we ate a little lighter from the street vendors. The people were friendly and welcoming, I remember fondly how we joined in on the laughing yoga in Hanoi in the early morning. The caves just blew us away with interesting formations and pure size. A great mix of adventure and scenic routes like the 17km downhill ride on a bike in DeLat, abseiling down waterfalls, to mountain walks and staying at the lovely Mrs Swan’s home-stay.

One thing I must tell you though, regarding tipping. Australians are not use to tipping and we asked you at the beginning about this and you answered that we don’t have to and it is not expected. This was not our experience travelling round. We were definitely expected to tip guides, bus drivers, boat rowers, horse handlers, almost everyone that gave us a service. This was a problem as we didn’t budget this in our sending money and we didn’t what to embarrass them or ourselves if we didn’t tip them the going rate.

But as I said above, we had a fantastic trip and have lots of fond memories of our time away. The itinerary ran smoothly and it was flexible the couple of times that we wanted to changed it.

Thank-you so much.

Kind regards,

Caroline Garstone