Andrew Percy and Christopher Marsh joined our Oct. 12 Nha Trang Coastal & Highland Adventure earlier this month, and last week Andrew shared the below video (in super-duper HD) with us. Sit back, put a bag of popcorn in the microwave, and enjoy 16 minutes of hi-definition adventure.
More Video!
Oct 29
In Moving Pictures
Oct 22
Former guest and now new friend Tony Brinsdon may not be a world champion speller, but he’s put together one heck of a video about his recent trip on our 7-day Nha Trang Coastal & Highland Adventure. Kudos, Tony!
The Kids Are All Right
Sep 19
Last Saturday, the whole VVA team cruised out to Saigon’s District 2 where we set up a booth and a dazzling display of promotional materials at The Deck for their quarterly Bazaar @ The Deck, where a horde of regional vendors decamped on the swank grounds of the riverside restaurant/bar to ply their wares in front of the local Anh Phu and Thao Dien residents. We rubbed elbows with custom tailors and adventure trek services, makers of gecko-shaped refrigerator magnets (bought one) and handbags crafted from recycled plastic shopping bags (bought two), vendors of T-shirts bearing images of historic Vietnam and hawkers of tiny, self-contained herb gardens. But mostly we chatted up people walking into and out of the event and gave free Vespa rides around the neighborhood to their kids. That’s what we were there for, after all – to let these fine folk know about the superlative services we offer, and to give free rides. All in all it was a terrifically successful day — if you count success in promotional vouchers handed out and enormous smiles on kids’ faces, which we do.
Many thanks to everyone at Saturday’s Bazaar @ The Deck who took a free Vespa ride courtesy of Vietnam Vespa Adventures! We spoke to scores of you about the half-day and evening tours we offer in Saigon as well as the multi-day trips we provide to Mui Ne, Nha Trang, and (soon) to Hue. It was a pleasure meeting you all!
Many of those we spoke to Saturday accepted a coupon from us good for 15% off any of our local tours. We only regret we weren’t able to give out more of those vouchers. Therefore we’d like to extend that promotion here: This fall, we’re pleased to offer a 15% discount to all readers of Anh Phu Neighbors on any of our Single Day Adventures: Insider’s Tour, Saigon After Dark, Saigon Art & Architecture, or our new full-day Cat Ly Countryside Tour (so new it’s not even on the website yet).
This promotion is valid through November 30. To inquire about our tours or to make a reservation, contact us at info at vietnamvespaadventures.com or lets at ridevespas.com. You can also find us at Cafe Zoom in Pham Ngu Lao.
As many of you noted, these tours are perfect for visiting friends and family, as well as for resident expats pining for a truly authentic experience here. We run our local tours every day of the week for a minimum of two people. And we are happy to provide private tours or to customize our existing tours to your needs. Wonder what others have said about our tours? Please have a look at any of the 110 reviews on our TripAdvisor page!
Thanks again to everyone who stopped by our booth on Saturday, and thanks especially to Ina, Peter and Ingrid for organizing the Bazaar @ The Deck. We look forward to seeing you all again in December.
Cheers,
The VVA Team
Patrick, Steve, Bao, Phuong, and Josh
Picture This
Sep 10
Love this video posted last week from Mark, Sin, D, and Chris of their July 6-12 Nha Trang Coastal & Highland Adventure. Guys, we’re totally using this in our marketing materials!
We’ve long been fans of online travel guide Travelfish, which specializes in Southeast Asian destinations. In fact, Travelfish is our own first go-to resource whenever we’re doing any exploring in the region. We’ve used it in Bali, Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Thai islands, and of course here at home in Vietnam (if we ever get to Laos, we’ll use it there, too). So we practically wet ourselves with excitement last week when Travelfish Vietnam editor Angela Schonberg contacted us about joining one of our Saigon After Dark tours for a possible write-up. She and her boyfriend joined us on a mercifully rain-free evening on which three other guests also joined, local expats Rachel and Rupert with their Singapore amigo Dmitry, visiting for a weekend. We had a blast (naturally) and this morning we were treated to an excellent surprise: this blog post at Travelfish’s Saigon blog:
Vietnam Vespa Adventures takes guests off the beaten path and shows them, I think, a more authentic side of the city with their Saigon After Dark tour. And with Vespa Adventures you get to see Saigon in style, from the back of restored, late 1960s-early 1970s Vespas.”
You can see the full post yourself here, but we were awfully fond of the wrap-up, which reads exactly like what we’d say about the tour if we were a little more articulate:
I loved the tour; it took me to places so far off the beaten path that I hadn’t even heard of them. So, if you’re coming to town, or you’ve been here awhile, and you want a fun night out where you can experience “the real Saigon”, give it a try!”
Thanks Angela, Max, and all of the awesome folks at Travelfish!
Tram Phan Tram!
Sep 8
On Monday night, Steve and Josh were both out of town on a Mui Ne tour and a Nha Trang tour, leaving Bao and Phuong and I to mind the house and the local tours that cropped up. These included a birthday group of five (happy birthday, Rafael!) and a separate tour of mostly locals. Among them were District 2 residents Rachel and Rupert, hosting Singapore compadre Dmitry on his last night in HCMC before returning to the world’s largest city/state/shopping mall. But we also had the media with us – namely Angela and Max, Americans who are the local go-to source for Southeast Asia online travel guide TravelFish. The pair also handle all duties for TravelFish’s Saigon blog.
Say hello to the whole gang, here shown prior to Rupert’s challenge to Angela to beat him in a tram phan tram (“100%!”) beer chugging contest at Banh Xeo. (*Note: for the record, Angela does not officially drink beer.) Those photos are classified, we’re afraid.
04 September 2011, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – Custom scooter tour provider Vietnam Vespa Adventures today reached a milestone for customer satisfaction that puts them in a class of their own: 100 total customer reviews at social media-powered online travel website TripAdvisor. The achievement places VVA in a singular position among Saigon-based tours of every type, as no other tour operator in the region can claim so many positive reviews on the popular site. The overwhelming response from satisfied guests of the company’s five tours places them among the preeminent custom tour providers of any kind in the city.
“It’s a hugely gratifying moment for us,” says company founder Steve Mueller. “Our mission from the beginning has been to place customer satisfaction above all other considerations, because we believe that a great business is built on top-quality product and excellent service. Getting to 100 reviews at TripAdvisor is for us an affirmation of everything we’ve worked for.”
The review that vaulted VVA into the triple digits is typical of the testimonials that guests of the company’s five local and regional tours have to say about their experience on the site and elsewhere.
“Words cannot do this trip justice,” wrote Ronnie Blaire, a guests on the company’s one-week Nha Trang Coastal & Highland Adventure. “The 7-day trip will leave me with a lifetime of memories I will never forget. You are definitely not just another tourist here, these guys take you in like one of the family. Nothing was too much trouble. You will never find experiences like this on your own or on a tour bus. I’ve never had so much fun or adventure, truly the adventure of a lifetime.”
“What makes this achievement especially meaningful for us is that these 100 reviews describe a picture of our company, our tours, our employees, and our service that is more accurate than anything we could ever say about ourselves,” notes VVA partner Patrick Sharbaugh. “That’s the beauty of a site like TripAdvisor. These testimonials are unblinkingly honest. They give us a 98% satisfaction rating, which is extraordinary, but they also point up places where we can improve. And we take those recommendations very, very seriously.”
Vietnam Vespa Adventures has been providing unique vintage scooter tours in Saigon and southern Vietnam since 2007 – longer than any other local company. Although their product is often copied by other local operators, none can duplicate their commitment to service nor the stylish, luxe experience of riding through Saigon and southern Vietnam on beautifully restored Vespa scooters from the Golden Era of the late 1960s and early 1970s .
TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel website and online travel guide, with more than 45 million worldwide visitors per month. The site taps into tap into travelers’ collective knowledge and enables them to share their experiences and advice in a fully transparent way, without editing or filtering content.
To learn more about VVA, their tours, the company’s history in Vietnam, or anything else, contact Patrick Sharbaugh at patrick@vietnamvespaadventures.com or +84 01225656264.
Hi-resolution photos available on request.
For the past several weeks, our team here in Saigon has been a little distracted. The source of our distraction has been the social media-driven travel site TripAdvisor, on which we’ve been listed since last February. We’ve been marking the progess of those (incredibly flattering, blushworthy) reviews toward the number 100 like a kid watching a Christmas calendar. Like a pot that’s being watched for a boil or that red light that just seems to go on forever (in Vietnam this is admittedly not much of a problem), it seemed like the closer we got, the slower time dragged on, and that we would never reach 100.
Until yesterday, when we did.
At about 2pm Vietnam time on 31 August, the TripAdvisor ticker rolled over to triple digits. The coup de gras seems to have come from one of two people – oddly, we can’t be sure, as the site holds comments for a short time before posting them. The first indication came via Twitter, from user @blurblurz, who wrote:
@VNVespaTours there … just gave you guys your 100th review! any discount for futur tours? hahaha..
But moments after this, Steve sent ’round an email noting that review #100 had been posted by Scotland native Ronnie Blair, who joined us with his brother Michael on our recent August 14-20 trip to Nha Trang. Among other gushing comments, Ronnie wrote:
Words cannot do this trip justice. The 7-day trip will leave me with a lifetime off memories I will never forget. You’re definitely not just another tourist here, these guys take you in like one of the family. Nothing was too much trouble. You will never find experiences like this on your own or on a tour bus. I’ve never had so much fun or adventure, truly the adventure of a lifetime.”
And just as fast as that, we were at 101.
One review to go before we hit triple digits. We’ve been waiting a long time for this – since February of this year, when we first signed up for TripAdvisor. And all the party plans are in place. Will it be today? This weekend? We’re all atingle over here.
