Hi Fiona, flying Cathay Pacific from Heathrow via Hong Kong to Saigon price is £1,020 each, but we are flying on the 22nd Dec, as you know prices double or treble that time of year.

What flights are you looking for? just from Hk to saigon?

we had been going with Cathay from HK to Saigon but they dropped the flight late on.

Air Asi the low cost airline based in Malaysia operate flights from Bangkok to Hanoi and they are mega cheap.
Have to watch the luggage allowance though as you are only allowed 15kgs per person.

yes...bit of a problem that!!!

we had been going with Cathay from HK to Saigon but they dropped the flight late on.

Hi Fiona, i don`t understand as we are flying from HK to saigon, what do you mean they`ve dropped the flight it`s a scheduled route?

it was just that flight they dropped- you can stop panicking!

Hi Fiona, found this on the lonelyplanet, i don`t know if it`s you, but someones in a very similar position.

link
http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/messagepost.cfm?postaction=reply&catid=24&threadid=1216968&messid=10546916&STARTPAGE=1&parentid=0&from=9

Hi Scchin

We came back from Vietnam last Saturday. We went to Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hoi An, Saigon and Phan Thiet.
Halong Bay is beautiful but we got little bit ripped off on the junk boat. Basically we were the only tourists on the boat and first we thought that it was wonderful. We were suppose to have 4 hour trip with lunch. After lunch we were taking loads of photos of the rock formations and a girl, who was one of the crew, came to me with loads of silver jewellery and pearls (which was overpriced!!!). Well, appart from my wedding ring I don't wear anything so I told her that I don't need anything. Suddenly she could not understand english and started to put bracelets and other stuff on me. I told her that I think that pearls are for older people (I am in my 20s) and she 'didn't' understand. So I called our guide and told him to tell her that I don't want it... But he just said that pearls are for me aswell and just laughed! After half an hour of pushing I just had to buy a small bracelet otherwise I would not be left alone. I know that now you must think that I was silly, but I just felt very uncomfortable and I thought that it will be the best think to do. My husband tried to tell them that we don't want it but their attitude was not listening!
I would recommend, if you go there, to take a boat with other tourists.

thanks Pinkie- but I'm not going to Hong Kong. I was thinking of just going to Hanoi and back to BKK and Koh Samui. Had looked at beaches in Vietnam but most of the beaches recommended are much further down and not sure about the weather then.
Zabka- please tell us more! I would love to hear how you got on and what you would recommend.

Zabka why didn`t you just buy something straight away? be honest how much did it cost you to avoid all the hassle, i`ve learnt anywhere in Vietnam just buy and they leave you alone.

In Nah trang, we had a few beach sellers, i bought of them all on day one the total bill came to £3, the other 6 days they actually came for a chat to improve there French or English, or our Vietnamese, which when we left we could surprisingly hold a very very small conversation in there language.

Other places in Vietnam, we didn`t see any sellers, in fact we didn`t see anybody but a few locals who loved playing with my girlfriends hair, come to think of it i should have charged them

So many great places to see, we didn`t have any guides, just got a taxi around the South, as it was $10 a day, ended up in all crazy places, and our Mekong delta tour was just something else. Just the two of us plus some guy who owned a boat, i haven`t got the time to tell you about it, but we ended up for 5 days with this bloke on this boat, we slept on it, ate on it, and did the rest on it.

To this day i`m sure he thought we wanted a mini cruise or something, but you wouldn`t believe what two Westerners and a local who happens to own a boat got up to.

Hi Pinkie

We didn't buy something straigt away because the cheapes think she offered was a bracelet for 35 USD I really didn't go to Vietnam to do shopping. I felt completely ripped off (well I actually was ).

Of course we bought some souveniers at the local sellers... like beaufitul hand made post cards in Hoi An.

$35 thats fair enough, and that was the cheapest!! perhaps they knew you were on a tourist boat or something. You should have been on our little boat, i was selling whisky to the locals, only for a smile in return.

We don`t follow any tourists routes, just go with the flow, to date it hasn`t backfired, and thats anywhere in the World. Perhaps we`ll come unstuck somewhere, but i`ll hope i`ll be alive to tell you about it.

Back in Saigon soon, the Rex hotel again.

We travel a lot and normally it is DIY.. but we wanted to see the whole Vietnam and the best way (financially and 'planning wise') to do it in two weeks (couldn't take more time off work) was to have a 'private' tour.
We didn't know that we will have the whole boat to ourselves (we didn't have a choice of the boat).
The rest of the tour was very good, but in the future we stick with our DIY

well I like DIY as well but there was no way I was getting good prices for what I wanted to do. In the end though I was getting quotes from companies with accomodation I would not have picked so I gave up this time.