Dear Van,

Thanks again for leading us on yet another marvelous trip cycling in the Mekong. Our relatives from the Bahamas absolutely loved it. They felt it was the highlight of their trip to Vietnam and Thailand, bringing them closer to people and culture than any other experience. Thailand is called the Land of Smiles, but for them, Vietnam won the comparison. They'll never forget the calls of "hello!" from children along the roadside, and the families who showed us their farms and homes.

As well, the food at all the places you brought us was excellent. Superior to the up-scale Mekong Lodge, with its cooking classes, which we chose in place of your recommendations. Your support team was always there when we needed it, and there were some hot and tired moments when some needed a ride in the bus. It's really great the way you accommodate riders of such different abilities in the same trip. I need to pick a weekend for a trip in the Fall when we get back to school. I'll see who's interested and email you to set a date. I expect quite a few of the teaching staff will want to come.

Thanks again! It's always great to ride the Vietnam backroads with you. 29 - 30 April 2012

Good Morning Miss Hue,
We are in Cambodia for the next 5 days and then our adventure in SE Asia is over. We thoroughly enjoyed our cycling part of the trip with Backroads.  We were delighted to get off the busy roads and away from the motorcycles and horns and pollution. The paths we biked were so interesting.  The village people and farmers were exceptionally friendly calling out "hello" at every opportunity.  The experience totally changed my opinion of the wonderful Vietnamese people. Our guide, Bobby, was exceptional.  He worked hard at explaining the sights and answering all our questions.  He had a great sense of humour. Our driver was great as well.  Although he did not speak english he was always courteous and ready to help. We enjoyed our hotels on the the second and third night.  The hotel Cuu Long (I think that was the name) on the first night was very rundown.  It was clean but very tired. The meals Bobby set up for us were great.  He worked hard to give us a feel for the real Viet Nam. The only part that we would improve upon is a little more cycling, especially on the third day. Bobby explained that there were no back roads to take and he was quite right that the main road would not be fun to cycle.  We are avid cyclists and would have prefered to cycle closer to 60 Km a day rather than ride in the van. We will certainly recommend Backroads on Trip Advisor when we return to Canada.
Thank you for all your assistance, especially to Van the Man for retrieving our passports and sending them on the bus to Can Tho. We offered to pay Bobby for that service but he refused.  It was much appreciated.
Sincerely. 12 April 2012

Dear Miss Hue,

Dear Van,

Hi Van,
We had a most memorable time with Vietnam Backroads, we would do it again and certain would recommend your company to others. Here a few things we enjoyed as well as some other feedback.

Hotels were great and trip organization was fantastic - this allowed us to focus more on the vacation/site-seeing aspect of the adventure Guides and drivers - wonderful people. The bikes in Cambodia were more comfortable than the bikes we used in Vietnam. Food was excellent but at times too much - we hate to waste food and we felt because of the large portions, we were wasting some of it. The guides in Cambodia would stop and educate us along the way about the culture, people, history, etc. The same thing occurred in Vietnam but not as much. Day to Day flexibility was perfect allowing us to ride at our own pace. We would have liked to stop at some of the smaller markets in remote towns, we missed some of those opportunities. Overall, the experience was excellent, we would love to do it again someday.

Take care Van!

Dear Van
Please find attached my feedback.  I am sorry it is not more constructive but really I have no criticisms.  For us we were very lucky as you we incredibly flexible and could be as there were just the two of us.  You have two converted bike tourers! As for value for money it is certainly not the cheapest trip but good value for what we do, the quality of equipment and for 2 comfortable hotels.  However payment is tricky!  I understand the need for a deposit but it was suprisingly difficult to do an international bank transfer. None the less I was more comfortable with doing that than supplying my card details.  Payment of the balance at the end would have been much easier to do with a card or knowing dollars was your preferred method of payment I would have taken dollars out in Cambodia and carried them with me.  So maybe some more info on that before the tour could have been helpful. Feb 2012

Anyway thank you again for a fantastic few days - a real highlight of the trip as a whole!  I hope it is ok but I suggested my biking friends from Cambodia get in touch if their tour is taking them through Saigon. Video Clip

I took my 13 year old daughter on the trip, and she is not confident cyclist. Van took wonderful care of her, and after the first hour, I was not worried at all. The guides could not have been kinder or more helpful, answering our questions and telling us about the history and culture of Vietnam. It was a fantastic experience. 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 Feb 2012. Video Clip

Thanks Van Biking to Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

The restaurants were fantastic! Great food and refreshment. The guides were so nice and funny, they make everything very easy. We will recommend your tour to friends. The routes were amazing. Everything was fasunating. I love my ride. 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 Feb 2012.

Thanks you so much for the trip. Thanks Tan.

This was a fantastic trip professional organized accommodating and fun. We strongly recommend this to anyone considering a bike trip. Thank you for the amazing time! 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 Feb 2012. Missing Mekong Delta & Phu Quoc Island

Nghi was a wonderful guide.

Hi Van,  
The trip was fantastic, Van.  Your choice of places to buy fruit, see sights and people, to eat in restaurants, and to interact with local population was exceptional.  We appreciated your flexibility about length of rides and changing agendas to see sights or eat at more interesting restaurants. We enjoyed learning about the country and culture your  perspective. The bike maintenance was impeccable, as were the bike refreshments. The bike equipment was high quality. We love the jerseys. Fantastic! Biking Vietnam Backroads 2012

Happy New Year. Don and I hope we can ride with you again someday! Saigon Hanoi by bicycle   Rocking and rolling on bike from Saigon to Hanoi

Hello Van,

Well now I am back home, unpacked and have sorted myself out.  My return trip from Hanoi was smooth sailing and I had no problems. I want to say that I had a most excellent trip and it went far beyond my expectations. In fact, I can confidently say that it was the best value, best organised and best run bicycle tour I have been on, and I have been on a few. I will have no hesitation in recommending most highly Vietnam Backroads to any of my friends and acquaintances.  And I shall certainly tell them how flexible you are in meeting peoples' specific needs. I agree that to get a better Vietnam experience a three star hotel is better than a four star, and certainly most of the hotels you booked us into were very satisfactory. Cycling Saigon to Hanoi 13 Jan 2012 Biking Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi

Hi Van,
We had a great trip - our guide Thang was great,  everything went like clockwork  - we did a lot of eating of all sorts  of food we never would have tried on our own or known what to order as we told Thang we were interested in trying foods, he introduced us to iced coffee and we had one or two every day. The bikes were good, minivan driver excellent and as we expected our bums a little sore at end of day 3 but what we expected.
Our three days were excellent but I strongly suggest  you change the last night hotel. I tell you this as I also own my own business and feedback is important - I strongly think you need to change the hotel. We will write  good report on trip adviser and will recommend you to others as we did not see another westerner on the days we were on the bike as you promised.  16 Jan 2012
   
Happy new year
 

Hi Van,
we've just finished our a wonderful trip, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Thai and Mr Hoang looked after us beautifully, and the scenery was fantastic.  It was a great way to experience Vietnam.
Now, we are now keen to do a cycle tour (4 days/3 nights) in the Mekong Delta from 18 January to 21 January 2012.  Trip started on 29 Dec 2011 and ended on 07 Jan 2012

With thanks

Hello Van,
we are now back in Vietnam and we met Janene and Kerry on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning they flew to Con Dao Island and they will come back to stay with us on Tuesdsay. They then fly to Myanmar on Wednesday so they are very busy. They really enjoyed the motorbike trip. They talked alot about it and told us alot of good things that happened. They took many photos .... over one thousand. And yes they really enjoyed Long and his friend. They said that Long and his friend were very helpful and considerate drivers and  leaders. They were always thinking about what they needed.

Thank you Van for organising this!!! I will certainly recommend your company to others. I might even need your help for another trip soon. Maybe we will have coffee sometime!! Video clips of Mekong Motorcycle Tours by Vietnam Backroads
Cheers

Hi Van,
Thank you for your help when the flight was cancelled.  We enjoyed our time in Vietnam.  Nguyen gave us an interesting insight into Vietnam and your culture and is an engaging tour guide and it is clear he enjoys his work.  The driver drove well and safely.  The routes that you used were very good and we liked them. 

Dear Van,
thanks for your mail. I am back at my office desk now - sadly my holiday in Vietnam is over. I enjoyed it very much, though - and also enjoyed the bike trip through the Mekong Delta very much. Hung was a very good replacement for you - at least I can say we had lots of fun with him and he really showed us around the backroads. Everything was perfectly arranged, we were felt well, the hotels were allright - we loved the trip.
 
Best wishes from Germany.  05 Dec 2011

For cyclists like us there should be regularly stop for drinks and cookies as well in the morning as in the afternoon. We enjoyed this trip very much, especially on the third day, it was beautiful day. The landscape was very beautiful. Both guides, Tan and Chi were very friendly and helpful.

A 6 day cycling trip from Chau Doc town to Phu Quoc Island.  Watch video on Youtube.com

12 Dec 2011

We arrived back home yesterday.  Had a great time on our trip!  Thank you for leaving the cycling jersey's for us at our hotel room in Chau Doc, we really appreciated those.
We left our feedback form with Thai for the Vietnam portion of the trip. Overall we really enjoyed our experience.  Both guides were great.  Thai was extremely professional, educational and accommodating while we were there.  Our guide in Cambodia, Po Leak, was maybe not as professional as Thai but was very informative, friendly, and helpful as well.  The one thing that would have made the trip even better is if we were provided some kind of detailed map to follow along with where we came from and went every day that had descriptions about our destinations.  I had a little trouble remembered where we were and where we were going each day because we went so many places in such a short time.
Otherwise the trip was great and we will definitely recommend it to our friends.  We also plan to write a review for you on Trip Adviser at some point in the next week or so to help promote Vietnam Backroads. 28 Nov 2011

Hi Van,
Thanks for a wonderful bike trip to Mekong Delta. Excellent guide (Thai) was really good. We stopped many place of interesting. We enjoyed the trip very much will recommend this to our friends back home.

08 Dec 2011

Hi Van,
Thanks again for organising a great trip on the weekend, many good memories and photos will be taken back to Australia with Mary and Carolyn. Video Clip

29 Oct 2011