The Contrau time

Inspirational Travel 1

THE CON TRÂU TIMESIssue 4 - Apr 2011

2 Inspirational Travel

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1. Joining the Buffalo Family

2. Blessing Office Ceremony in BT Thailand

3. Annual Staff Party for BT Cambodia Office

4. Fanxipan 2011: The Power of the Team

5. How to become an Innovator

6. The Unforgettable Memory with our Customer

7. Feedback on what members of staff have been doing

8. Birthdays and Anniversaries

Pham Quynh Trang – French Sales Executive Nghiem Thi Dung – Spanish Sales ExecutiveLuyen Kim Sau – Ticketing Executive Nguyen Minh Yen – PR & Marketing ExecutiveNguyen Do Huyen Trang – Travel Consultant - BTA Sai Gon

Le Quang Hung – Spanish Sale Executive

Welcome to the Buffalo Tours team!

Please join us in congratulating our new staff members on their positions at Buffalo Tours. We look forward to working with them in the future!

Thank you for your contributions to Buffalo Tours and we wish you success in the future!

Joining Buffalo tours Leaving Buffalo Tours

Inside This Issue

Tip of the monthBe the change you want to see in the world!

Mahatma Gandhi


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in BTA Thailand Blessing Office Ceremony What is office Blessing?

A Blessing is a spiritual healing and purification of an important place in your life; your work, your business, or any other place you may spend time. The purpose of a Blessing is to bring harmony, clar-ity, peace, protection and prosperity into the places you spend time.

The usual rites of a Buddhist blessing ceremony are performed by the monk in order to bring luck, hap-piness and wealth to the people working here.

According to Thai tradition, a Buddhist monk was asked to do the Blessing. The Sai Sin white thread was unrolled through the place in order to spread the sacred power around the office. The link be-tween the monk and the thread running through the place is thought to form a sacrosanct circle, as the monk’s chanting is infusing the the white thread with a benevolent and protecting power.

Writen by: Ms. Lapasrada Janma (PA & HR , Admin – BT Thailand)


THE CON TRÂU TIMESANNUAL STAFF PARTY for BT Cambodia Office

This year, our Annual Staff Party took place on Saturday 9th April. We celebrated it at the Kannel Restaurant.

With its beautiful scenery, tropical garden, Asian & French Food and free flow drinks, we partied all evening with our internal and external staff. Getting together for chit chat, drinking, laughing, exchanging jokes , personal working experiences and making new friends, for me, was extremely rewarding. It was an excellent opportunity to speak with all of them and thank them for their excellent and consistent work. With a positive attitude, professionalism and a strong team work spirit, we have reinforced our name- Buffalo Tours, from our internal team to all of our keys suppliers (restaurant, hotels, transportation companies, commu-nities’ projects, villages, government and more).Everyone had a wonderful time and look-ing forward to continuing our excellent communication, business relationship and ready for the coming year!!!

Written by: Mr. Panya Thin (Country Manager BT Cambodia)


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FANxIPAN 2011FANxIPAN 2011

The PoweR oF The TeAm

The PoweR oF The TeAm

The annual Buffalo Tours Fanxipan con-quest this year was an unusual edition: the 11 participants included 7 ladies

(Huong, Trang Op, Phuong, Truc, Tam, Thien Y, Pascale) and only 4 men (Kien, Dr Tuan, Trung, Graham). For the first time, 4 trekkers came from Ho Chi Minh City, and at the last minute one more person decided to join, with no time to train before the trek. Quite a challenge for the organizers, who might have felt a tad wor-ried before departure.

The train ride to Sapa was not especially com-fortable, but entertainment was provided by the Saigon group with a certain game of strip poker setting the mood. Once arrived in Sapa, we took over the Victoria Hotel, immediately transforming this charming resort into a camp-ing site for homeless people. The management was hospitable, but clearly relieved to see us go.A quick bus ride to Tram Ton Pass and off we went after a brief stop at a local school for stretching exercises in front of the students who openly thought us hilarious. We were accompa-nied by 10 Hmong porters and Hmong guide, Hiep, who was a lovely companion throughout the trip, with a clear preference for “flowers” (girls in Hmong language – “fruits” being men).

Soon the real action began: mud, rocks, ladders, rocks, mud… up and up we went. It was quite challenging for some of us, who then proved they were real heroes. No complaints, albeit a lot of grunting and sighing, all pressed on, no matter how high the cliff or how steep the path. We stopped for lunch in a small grove and of course it immediately started to rain! But food never tasted so good...

After this chilly pause, we put the backpacks on again and of course the rain stopped, just to show us… The afternoon went on, taking us through mountains shrouded in mist, with breathtaking views and eerie scenery: hidden valleys lit up by flower-covered rhododendron trees, hazy peaks and dizzying drops. Our guide Hiep taught us about local vegetation and customs, making us taste some “energy plants”, which might have accounted for the number of “happy stops” in the following hours. We discovered rhododendrons, cardamom flowers, bamboo forests, wild flora.

Somewhere on the way, our guide Hiep picked up a “happy room” (aka toilet seat contraption), which he carried all the way to Base Camp, an uncanny sight on the winding path towards


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Fanxipan…Night was falling when we arrived at Base Camp 2, where we spend the night. We re-ceived a standing ovation for delivering the “happy room”, a hint of luxury for the comfort-challenged travelers. Not exactly a 5*, with its muddy yard, chilly winds and rudimentary lodging crammed up with weary trekkers. Food was a late affair, on a tarpaulin sheet outside, in the cold. The only casualty of the day was the doomed chicken who had accompanied us since Tram Ton Pass, but did not make it further than our stomachs that evening.During dinner, our porters had installed the tents for us. The night was long and cold, musi-cal accompaniment provided by Dr Tuan, who happily snored the night away. At least some-one slept well! Finally we got our wake-up call at 5h00 am, tucked in a noodle soup and “lucky water” – the most wonderful apple juice and cinnamon team prepared by Hiep. Bless him!

We took off around 6h30am and started the final ascent. After 2h30 of plodding, sliding, climbing, scrambling, clambering… we finally

made it: there we were, at the top of Mount Fanxipan, the highest peak in Indochina! Alas no view, as we were surrounded in mist, but we have the pictures to prove we were there! We took this opportunity to clean up a little bit the litter left by uncaring hikers, leaving the Fanxi-pan a little cleaner…Then the descent started, heading back towards Tram Ton Pass. It took us some 10 hours of plod-ding in mud and clambering though slippery slopes and precipitous rocks to finally reach the end of our trip, much to the satisfaction of all.So why did we do it? Why the pain, the exhaus-tion, the discomfort, the cold, the dirt…? Curi-osity, the need to test oneself, the love of effort, all this and more... But in the end, all that counts is the intense satisfaction of taking yourself beyond your limits. As Huong said at the end of the journey “I would never had made it without you all”. Maybe this is why we do it: to demon-strate the power of the mind over the body, the power of the team.

Writen by: Pascale Herry (Travel Agency Manager - BTA Sai Gon)


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Một chặng đường không xa mà sao đi mệt quá, chỉ có 3 cây số theo phương thẳng đứng thôi mà! Suốt hai ngày, lúc nào mặt cũng

dán xuống đất, đá và bùn sình lầy. Có những đoạn phải dùng cả bốn chi để leo lên, có khi lại hạ tấn để trượt xuống, suýt nữa thì lác hết mông . Cũng may là mùa này rừng có rất nhiều hoa đỗ quyên nên dẫu đi có mệt mấy cũng thấy đáng. Hoa nở đẹp lắm, kết lại từng chùm tròn xoe điểm thêm vài chiếc lá bên dưới cứ như là hoa cưới cho cô dâu. Cảnh vật chuyển màu liên tục từ màu xanh ngắt của vạt rừng trúc đến trảng lá vàng đỏ phủ đầy cánh hoa. Túm lại chỉ có một chữ “Tuyệt”. Nhưng mà có lúc mệt quá không ngẩng mặt lên nổi để ngắm cảnh xung quanh. 9h sáng theo giờ địa phương (GMT+7) ngày 26/04/2011, cả đoàn chạm được tay vào cái khối thép lạnh ngắt hình kim tự tháp có dòng chữ Fansipan 3.143m. À há, nóc nhà Đông Dương là đây, ôi đỉnh Fansipan là đây. Oops, I did it! Ai đó đã nói “Lên đến đỉnh kiểu gì cũng thấy sướng”. Mà đúng là sướng thật, không biết phải dùng từ ngữ nào để mô tả cái đoạn này, xúc cảm dâng trào và thấy tự hào kinh khủng khiếp. Sau khi ngất ngây trong men say chiến thắng thì cả đoàn băng băng xuống núi, khí thế hừng hực. Tự nhủ lòng, bây giờ tất cả đều là chuyện muỗi, không có gì cản nổi bước chân ta.

Ngẫm lại thì thấy thu hoạch lớn nhất chẳng phải phút thăng hoa trên đỉnh Fan mà là tinh thần đồng đội trong suốt hành trình chinh phục, là hiểu hơn về sức mạnh của ý chí, là những lúc chuyện trò thân hơn với mọi người. Tất cả tạo thành một chuyến đi hoàn hảo chỉ trừ giai đoạn đau nhức hậu Fansipan và tiếc là chưa có dịp dùng cái happy-hole.

Written by: Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc (Assistant to Branch Manager – BT SGN)

BA CÂY SỐ!HAI NGÀY MỘT ĐÊM


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To change the way we live,

work, and playBe Innovator:

To turn ideas into impact.To become an innovator.

Think like a travellerWe need to be in Vu Jade (inverse of Déjà vu) state of mind to be creative. In this state, we look at the world with a fresh perspective. Over a decade ago, IDEO was approached by Oral-B to develop a toothbrush for kids. During the field research, IDEO observed kids brushing their teeth. Kids have small hands and they fist the toothbrush. IDEO realized that kids needed a fat squishy toothbrush for a better grip.

Treat life as an experiment.You should be willing to take risks and fail. Say you go to a bookstore and find a 300-page book. It is risky to read this book without knowing whether you would like it or not. However, if you treat this as an experiment, you can get start-ed and then read the rest of the book if you enjoy it. Thomas Edison was someone who treated life as an experiment. He said that he had invented over 1000 ways of how not to put the filament in a light bulb.

Have an attitude of wisdomFind a balance between what you know and being thirsty about knowledge. Do not rest on your laurels. Confucius said

that “to know is to know that you know nothing.”

Use your whole brainIn order to be an effective problem solver, you should use both your left and right brain. When you are strug-gling with an issue, write it down in form of a question before you go to sleep. Let the tortoise mind work on it. According to neuroscience, the tortoise mind works on this question in the background and supplies you a flash of insight.

Follow your passionThere are two kinds of people — people who are happy and people who work for their weekends. You will be better at something if you love it. Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, devised the concept of three circles. What are you good at? What are you passionate about? How can you add value to society? At the intersection of these three circles lies your true calling. The supreme achievement in life is to blur the line between work and play.

Sources Internet


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Everyone wishes to have a family and get married in their own way with their friends and families. Some of those even

consider how to take it further and make their wedding anniversary even more memorable?

In August 2010 Mr & Mrs. Derksen, together with three of their children, came to Cambo-dia for a family vacation and we were fortu-nate enough to be given the opportunity to organize the wonderful trip of a Traditional Marriage for their Wedding Anniversary. We would like to send our Special Thanks to Mr & Mrs. Derksen and their children for sharing their unforgettable memories with us as well as our team (office team, guide and hotel) for their perfect arrangements.

The wedding was an excellent example of a successful booking and shows how important it is to follow up such requests.

Written by: Mr. Panya Thin (Country Manager BT Cambodia)

The UNFoRgeTTABLeThe UNFoRgeTTABLeMeMOry wiTh Our CusTOMersMeMOry wiTh Our CusTOMers


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Compliments to Your Service:

I was in Vietnam a couple of weeks ago on business and took two tours arranged by your company. On both days, Tin was my tour guide (I specifically requested him the second day after my wonderful tour that he gave the first day). The two tours, a city tour and a Mekong Delta tour, were absolutely fantastic. Vietnam is an incredible place, but Tin’s knowledge, enthusiasm and passion made my investment with your company absolutely priceless. Tin’s language command was fantastic and he really, really knew his stuff. He is also enjoy-able to be with, funny and very, very competent. I can’t say enough great things about him and the arrangements made on my behalf.

One last thing, on the tour of the Delta, one of my work col-leagues, who was born and raised in Ha Noi, joined me. He said it was the most amazing tours he has ever taken. Thank you again. I have recommended your company to a couple of people who will be visiting Vietnam very soon and specifically recommended Tin to serve as their guide. Thank you again for two wonderful tours. David ([email protected])

This is a really good feedback from the Travel Sphere Manager for Thuan, this reflected how hard effort Thuan had been showing to clients. Thank you to Thuan for all your hard work.

Hi there,The tour went extremely was and Thuan was an excellent tour guide, and is an ambassador for your company as well as for your country. I hope to come back again soon. RegardsCarole” [mailto:[email protected]]

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Nguyen Thi TamDao Thi HuyenNguyen Thi To UyenPham Ngoc MinhSisaleo ThammathongsyNguyen Trung CongNguyen To Tran Huynh Nam HuongNguyen Thanh HongLaura WilkinsonDoan Thi Lan PhuongVu Thuy Tu MiTran Thi Minh TamTran Thi Bich HueDoan Thu HienBui Ngoc Linh

2 May2 May5 May8 May10 May10 May11 May11 May17 May18 May20 May26 May26 May26 May31 May31 May

Tour Guide – BT SGNReceptionist cum Admin – Cho Lon TourPurchasing Executive – BT HanoiTour Guide- BT HanoiReservation Executive – BT LaosCTO- Thien Minh GroupTravel Consultant – BT SGNTour Guide – Cho Lon TourAccountant – BT SGNMarketing InternVET- BT HanoiOperation Executive – BT SGNChinese Inbound Sales – Cho Lon TourPersonal Assistant - CEOAccountant- BT HanoiOnline Marketing Team Leader – BT Hanoi

Birthdays:

Anniversaries:Tran Thu Trang – French Sales Manager – Completing 6 years of serviceNguyen Thi Mai Lan – Germane Sales Executive– Completing 4 years of serviceNguyen Thi Thu Hien – Ticketing Executive – Completing 4 years of serviceGraham Donal Read – Product and Marketing Manager – Completing 1 year of serviceBui Minh Tan – Designer- MKT Dept – Completing 3 years of serviceNinh Thi Hong Hanh – HR Manager – Completing 6 years of serviceBui Ngoc Linh – Online Marketing Team Leader – Completing 6 years of serviceThammasak Busbong – FOX Reservation – Completing 1 year of service

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Congratulation Ms. Dinh Thi Doan Trang from Agent Sales and welcome her baby Pham Ngoc Khanh Linh a little member of Buffalo Tours!

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