Custom Vietnam Travel - www.customvietnamtravel.com

We were interested in travelling throughout Vietnam and visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia for a 30 day period in December and January 2015-16.

I looked at reviews on tripadvisor and found a guide - Smiley Nguyen - who was given an excellent review.

I emailed him and quickly got a response. I explained that as a serious amateur photographer, I wanted to spend the majority of the vacation traveling through the countryside, getting to meet the people and to spend very little time in cities. Smiley is an experienced guide and the owner of Custom Vietnam Travel. Within 10 hours, we had the outline of an agenda. After reviewing it, he arranged all the flights, hotels, home stays, private drivers and private guides. We then spoke over Skype to clarify issues and concerns we had about travelling to Vietnam.

We just returned from Vietnam. It was an amazing experience, getting to know the local people and learning so much about the country and especially photographing the people and landscapes.

We chose to stay at 4 star hotels, when available, but also enjoyed the home stays, which gave us intimate knowledge of the local people, who are incredibly open, welcoming and in touch with the land.

When we had a problem with one of the flights, due a mismatch between our passport and the ticket (our fault, since one had a middle name and the other didn't), I used the phone he gave me, called tthe office, and they cancelled and reissued the ticket while we waited for 5 minutes. Truly professional service and concer.

As you can tell, we were highly pleased with Smiley and all the guides and drivers. I would recommend his agency to anyone travelling to Vietnam or Cambodia. I told him he can also give our names to anyone wanting a reference. We are Canadians from Montreal.