Kimkim Trip Reviews for Vietnam

Enjoyed the market tour, demonstrations and actual cooking!

The 2 nights were perfect!

An appropriate alteration was made to part of the trip needing stair climbing that was greatly appreciated

Would have liked to have known more about the specifics, especially the mud and pool activity with the elephants so as to have had appropriate clothes. But would do it again!

tea taste, refreshing drink and dance exhibit were perfect!

Great location with beautiful view and serene surroundings. The pool was peaceful at sundown and provided a nice way to cool down and end the day.

So much fun riding on the back of Vespas. The food tour was particularly good with tastings of Banh Mi, Grilled Chicken and Rice, and a visit to a Jazz Bar to cap off the evening!

Very well located in a very chic area. Original decoration . Food excellent . Needs to improve the room to make them lightproof so we can sleep better.

Number 1 on our list of hotels in Vietnam . Gorgeous and surreal.

Great location . Beautiful surroundings and nice pool.

Hotel was ok and in a good area with easy walking to sites and places. The staff were very helpful and always available.

Good hotel but if your room is street facing then it could be noisy. Only feedback was that they have a shuttle to the old town but last shuttle stops 5:30 but night market starts 7PM so not easy to go into the old town after 5:30.

Not a great location and not very modern

Cant say enough about this hotel. I have NEVER stayed in a hotel that went that far out of their way to accommodate us. They were the best

Breakfast was not good. Did not even offer breakfast tea and when we asked for tea nobody could speak English. No staff spoke English so hard to communicate. Food was left open and had fly's on it. very bad breakfast.

Very large boat and did not really sail into some of the areas because of the size. It was full to capacity and not very personalized. Felt like over commercialized and were we herded around like cattle. I would not recommend this tour option. They packed the guest into a smaller boat and then picked up other guests form other boats for any off-boat tours (group as large as 40 people on side tours) They were too commercial and were more interested in scale and taking large groups around. Nothing was personalized Meals were not very good, Buffet but very standard and plane and very set (had 45 min each meal to finish and move out)

Boat was very commercialized and full capacity (40 people). Teh boat was too large to go into the smaller areas and basicalyl jsut went up and down for 30min cruise. Any acticvyties were off boat at the boat was too large. They then put you into a smaller boat with people from other boats to go swimming or cylcing. Very impersonal and mass tourist with no real engaement.

Interesting but a little outdated. The video shown was from 1980 and quality was bad

It was a good experience and glad we added

Tour was good and we enjoyed the foot tasting part. Only part we have a issue with was that theatre show. It was rubbish and there was 100% agreement from the audience that it was a tourist trap. Not worth doing at all

Have to see it but very tourist trap. Teh old town cycle was ok but guy cycling us around just wanted more money for a tip

Very busy and full of tourists.

Great hotel with nice pool area and a great breakfast.

We spent several nights here and thought it fantastic - lovely rooms, friendly and helpful team and a great location.

Found this hotel very charming - loved the embroidery (part of the owner's background); room really comfortable with a view of the sunset over the skyline; also a nice pool.

Loved this place! The views were breathtaking, team was lovely, and room was cute with a gorgeous view from the balcony.

Room was lovely, food spectacular and team extremely friendly.

Our guide, Tim (Trung) was absolutely superb - really entertaining and knowledgeable with a great sense of humour. Also had brilliant communication. Could not have enjoyed our time with him more!

Beautiful scenery and a very knowledgeable, interesting and friendly local freelance guide.

Stunning scenery with a very friendly and insightful local guide.

Big rooms, nice welcome, attentive staff, friendly and helpful for a late check out and other services when our flight was delayed.

A good location, fabulous views with friendly staff.

Sleek hotel with helpful staff.

A quaint little cruise ship with some surprises!

Beautiful countryside, the cave is a little past its best (not many bats live here anymore) but it’s still worth a visit and was welcome way to cool down after the hot trek down and before the hotter trek back up!

Lovely to see the working water wheels and experience more village life.

Very comfortable room and very helpful staff.

Very comfortable hotel with great service by the staff, excellent location

Huge rooms, great location on the lake, very helpful staff with a homy atmosphere.

The room was fine but the overall service was not very professional. The location was great

The boat was beautiful and in good condition, very comfortable. The rooms were exceptional for a boat, very roomy. The food was great and the outings were very interesting and the staff and guides were professional

Very nice comfortable hotel with a pool and nice restaurant in a good location.

This is an exceptional hotel, with incredible rooms in the traditional style, landscaping was beautiful, pool was great, staff were very professional and helpful. The restaurant was exceptional. A very memorable experience to stay here.

The room was spacious, the ground were beautifully landscaped. The restaurant was not that interesting. The service was not at the same level of other hotels. The pool water was a bit green. The location is half way between Hoi An and the beach so a bit far from the city center.

Basic hotel, but lovely staff and more importantly a great base to explore Hanoi old quarter on foot.

Beautiful boat, great cabins. Lovely food

Lovely appartment , swimming pool was great. Free shuttle to town was a nice addition.

Nice hotel, swimming pool was a nice touch but sooo cold !

Amazing Hotel, good location by the beach. great swimming pool, and nice breakfast

Smaller rooms than other hotels and no swimming pool. Location however was great.

Great to have on your first day, especially if you stay a few days in Hanoi. Sandi was lovely

This is a must, Tham was wonderful, everything was great, the cycling, the boat, the cooking class, the eco Garden...a must

The cooking class was great !

We absolutely loved this, would highly recommend, the drivers and our guide was amazing, we had such a great time.

Nice hotel. Nice people. Out of way

Disrespectful to Americans

Place was empty. Food was cold. The final dance was worth watching.

Mr yuthy was informative and took good care of us

Dangerous. Food was ok but we thought we were going to a street food area rather than all over town during peak rush hour traffic

The accommodation, food and spa were great, but the staff made us feel so welcomed and could not of been more accomodating,

The market, as explained by our guide, seemed more like a tourist attraction maintained by the government, rather than an authentic local market still in regular use. Nevertheless, experiencing it was cool, but I would have preferred a more genuine experience.

The visit to Ben Tre, described as a 'Coconut Paradise,' turned out to be more of a stop at a gift shop. We expected a hands-on experience at a coconut plant, but what we really got was a demonstration on how to make candy and an opportunity to buy products. While it's interesting to see how things are processed on a small scale, calling it a coconut plant might be misleading.

I was a bit disappointed with the Hanoi Cooking Class & City Tour. I was expecting an interactive cooking class where I'd learn to make authentic Vietnamese dishes. Instead, it was more of a cooking demo for tourists, with minimal interaction. I was shown how to roll a spring roll, but not much else, which felt more like a snack-making session than a full cooking class.

We had an amazing time on this cruise - frankly, the comfort level of the rooms was so good it was a little shocking!

We had a pleasant but cold stay at Mu Cang Chai Ecolodge. The accommodations were charming and the hosts were very friendly and attentive to our needs, but the thin walls on our room were a big challenge for the cold front that brought temperatures down to the mid single digits. We would recommend a stay here, but be prepared if the weather turns cold!

Le Champ was one of the unexpected highlights of our trip. The location is magical, and it was such a delight to soak in the hot springs after a long day of travel. Extra points for having a beautiful cave to explore right on the resort grounds! We wish we had more time to enjoy this wonderful facility.

We loved this beautiful little resort on the outskirts of Sapa! The grounds and rooms are immaculate, the views are lovely and the food was terrific. We especially appreciated being outside the craziness that is Sapa town. Highly recommended!

We had a nice but brief stay at the Hue Ecolodge. The grounds were immaculate, the staff quite friendly, and the food was very good. We had a busy itinerary and poor weather, so didn't take advantage of the on-site amenities like the pool and spa, nor did we have a chance to explore the neighborhood. But as a place to spend a night it met our needs just fine.

We had a delightful homestay during our one night in Bac Ha. The grounds are pretty, the views are nice and the rooms were quite comfortable. We especially appreciate how they went out of their way to meet our food needs, driving us to a "tourist-friendly" restaurant for lunch and cooking us a delicious (and HUGE) dinner. We lingered around the dinner table late into the night getting to know our hosts using Google translate.

We had a delightful stay at the Chay Lap Farmstay. We loved the fact that the property is out in the country, away from the rapidly gentrifying Phong Nha town. We took advantage of the free bicycle rental to ride around the area, and the free kayak rental to escape the heat of the day out on the river. We also rented their e-bikes for a day at a very reasonable rate to explore the area. (A visit to Paradise Cave and a ride on the 'ferry' into town are both must-dos!) The Farmstay was an excellent place from which to see the amazing Phong Nha Ke Bang area.

We had a very nice 3-night stay at the Cozy An. We appreciated that it was in a quieter part of town while being close enough for us to walk to the more touristy areas. The rooms were nice, with a small balcony, and the food in the restaurant was plentiful and delicious. We took advantage of the free use of their bicycles to ride around town and ride out to the beach. We appreciated the one on one time we received from the concierge, and all her recommendations for what to see and where to shop. While in the end we didn't agree with all her assessments, they gave us a great place to start. We would definitely recommend staying here.

We spent our first full day in Vietnam on this tour of the Ba Vi. It was a nice introduction to Vietnam. The highlights of this tour were getting to speak with a former north Vietnam soldier about his experience during the American war and his perspectives on his country and relations with the US today, and the AMAZING lunch we had. However, the cooking class was a little disappointing - we were taught to make wraps for amazing spring rolls and got to make a salad, but the food was mostly prepped in advance and we didn't do any actual cooking. Also disappointing was the bike ride in the countryside, which was much shorter than we would have liked. Relative to some of the awesome days to come this tour was fine, just not one of the highlights.

The drive from Tu Le to Mu Cang Chai over the Khau Pha Pass was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, the March weather was hazy and overcast, so the views were not quite as lovely as they likely are at other times of the year. Once in Mu Cang Chai we had a tasty lunch and then headed into the hills for a walk through rice fields and a local village. We had a delightful encounter with a group of older Hmong women, from whom we bought textiles and crafts. After the long drive we were glad to stretch our legs and have a first person encounter with the countryside.

The drive from Mu Cang Chai to Sapa was long and winding. There were many sights along the way, though low clouds and hazy conditions detracted from some of the scenic beauty. We had a bit of trouble finding a place to stop for lunch, but in the end found a small restaurant that met our needs. We drove through the heart of the tourist area in Sapa town, getting enough of a sense for the place to be glad we were staying outside of town. We ended the day by walking from the edge of Sapa town to our homestay in the village of Sin Chai, which took about 90 minutes. It was a nice walk, but much less trekking than we had been led to believe. This was really more of a travel day than an activity day.

Our street food tour of Hoi An was an unexpected delight! After traveling for 3 weeks in vans and on bicycle it was such a delight to zip through the streets like a local on the back of a scooter. Our guide was soft spoken but informative, and he brought us to a nice mix of well-known and back alley food carts and restaurants. We got to try many kinds of foods. While not all were to our liking, we appreciated the opportunity to try them out. This was a great way to spend an evening in Hoi An.

Today's activity was the first for our highlight reel. The trek down from Sapa town through Cat Cat village and up into the hill villages was excellent. The route took us through cultivated fields, along jungle paths above a river, and into small villages where we could interact with the locals. The weather was cooperative - the haze even cleared a bit, allowing us to see the tall mountains across the valley - and it was great to have a day without car travel. We especially enjoyed our encounters with the local artists and artisans who produce the beautiful indigo-dyed batiks, embroidered clothing, incense, and other crafts.

Our time in Bac Ha was a bit mixed. After the morning drive from Sapa - in part along the Chinese border - we arrived in Bac Ha for lunch and then a trek into the hills near our homestay. It was interesting to see another mountainous landscape, though this trek lacked the interactions with local we had on previous treks. On Sunday we visited the famed Bac Ha market, which truly was an experience. It was a delight to see a bustling market whose focus was more on meeting the needs of locals than tourists. So many colors, sounds, smells and tastes - a true sensory delight! After market we had lunch at a roadside buffet restaurant that clearly was not geared towards tourists. The food was a little less beautiful than we'd seen elsewhere, but just as delicious. Then it was time for the long drive back to Hanoi.

Our caving experience with Oxalis was another trip highlight. We loved the physical activity, especially walking through the village to take in the sights, hiking through the mud in the rain, exploring caves with a headlamp, and swimming through the second cave. We had a great guide and an excellent cohort of fellow travelers to keep us company. The lunch provided on the trail, under a tent in the rain, was amazing considering the conditions it was served under. The only constructive criticism is that we would have liked more information in advance regarding what to bring with us and what clothing to wear. We were given the option of using our own footwear or the boots they provided and didn't understand the options well enough to make an informed decision. (Using their boots - assuming you can find ones that fit - is the clear correct choice.) Also, considering the weather, it would have been nice to have warmer clothing to put on when we stopped for lunch - a wool hat in our dry bag would have made a big difference.

We had a lovely dinner at the home of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Suong. It was very interesting to learn about the history of Hue and the Nguyen dynasty from an expert of that history. We were expecting a group dinner, and were pleasantly surprised that the table was set for only our host and the three of us. The food prepared by the host's 80+ year old mother was AWESOME, both in flavor and presentation. It was a meal we won't soon forget.

Of all the activities on our trip this one was our least favorite. In general we don't like packaged, pre-defined tours due to their impersonal nature and lack of autonomy, and this tour met our worst stereotypes. There were only 8 of us on the tour, but the jam-packed itinerary left no room for flexibility or meeting the particular needs of group members. Our guide was a lovely man, but he had marginal English skills. He had lots of information he wished to share with us, and it often felt like he was trying to force-feed it to us. It took a lot of energy to understand what he was trying to communicate - and after the first hour or so we stopped listening. We loved the imperial city, but didn't have the opportunity to explore it on our own terms. We liked seeing the pagoda and the tombs, but again would have appreciated more time to just see it at our pace. The lunch was a highlight for us, as the home restaurant had beautiful grounds and delicious food, but it was offset by the stop at the market (unnecessary) and the incense and hat making workshop (read: tourist store). In the end we mostly just felt tired and frustrated.