Every question, in one place

Both. Individual travellers book with us directly, and we also handle ground arrangements for a small number of overseas agents. The price you see quoted is the direct price.

It can, and we run exactly that as a fifteen-day route. Under fourteen days we would rather you did two countries well. Three countries in ten days is four internal flights and very little else.

For travel between November and March, three to five months. Outside that window six to eight weeks is usually enough, except around Tet, when hotels and domestic flights in Vietnam sell out early and prices rise sharply.

The quote is binding once you accept it and pay the deposit, apart from government fees and domestic airfares, which we pass through at cost and reconcile before final payment.

They are the same body of water, divided by an administrative line. Lan Ha is entered from Haiphong and takes a small share of the boat traffic, so the anchorages are quieter for the same scenery. If you specifically want the Ha Long name on your itinerary, say so and we will switch it.

Two of them are not, unless you have another week. Hanoi to Hue can be driven or taken by train, and the overnight train is a genuine option some people enjoy; it costs a day and we will price it either way.

Our office in the country you are in rebooks it and moves the ground arrangements the same day. Because we hold the vehicle and guide contracts ourselves rather than through a wholesaler, that is a phone call rather than a negotiation.

From about ten upwards it works. Below that the flights and the temple days are a lot, and the eleven-day family route is built differently, with shorter drives and fewer early starts.

Usually one of three reasons: we have quoted more guide days, we have named hotels in a band the other quote left open, or the other quote passes a domestic flight at a marked-up fare while we pass it at cost.

Send us the other itinerary. We will tell you line by line where the difference is, and if it turns out they are offering the same thing for less, we will say so.

No. They are booked at cost, shown as their own line, and reconciled before your final payment. If a fare drops between quoting and ticketing, the saving is yours.

Ground costs are fixed once the deposit is paid. Domestic airfares and government fees are passed through, so they can move slightly in either direction until tickets are issued.

It is not a discount, it is arithmetic: the vehicle and guide cost is divided by more people. Our price table shows the per-person figure at two, four and six travellers so you can see exactly where it lands.

They are different countries in most of the ways that matter to a traveller — climate, food, pace, architecture. If you have to choose one, the north has more variety within a short radius and a real winter, and the south has the delta, the best year-round weather from December to March, and the more relaxed cities.

Most nationalities do, and it is an online e-visa valid up to 90 days, usually issued in about three working days. A small number of passports have short visa-free entry. We send a written note for each traveller's nationality before you book flights, but the application itself is yours to make on the official government site.

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City it is dense rather than fast, and crossing a road on foot is a skill that takes a day to learn. It affects planning mainly at the edges of the day: an airport transfer that takes 50 minutes at midday takes 80 at six in the evening, and we build that into the timings rather than hoping.

No. Bottled or filtered water only, and our vehicles carry it. Ice in restaurants and established street kitchens is made commercially and is generally fine; food from a busy stall is safer than food from a quiet one, because the turnover is higher.

Three. One day covers the town and the Kuang Si falls badly; two days cover them properly and leave a morning on the river; the third is the one where the place stops being a sightseeing list. If your trip only has room for two, we will still book it, and we will tell you what you are giving up.

Only if you are willing to do it properly: from across the street, seated or standing still, no flash, no camera close to anyone's face, and no buying of food from the stalls set up to sell it to visitors. It is a religious obligation performed daily, not a performance. Our guides explain the etiquette the evening before, and some guests decide to sleep in instead.

For most trips, yes. Two hours on the ground beats a flight once you count airport time, it costs a fraction as much, and the mountain section is worth seeing. The catch is availability: seats release a limited number of days ahead and sell out in high season, so it has to be booked as soon as your dates are fixed.

Food and local transport are cheaper. Hotels in Luang Prabang are not — the old quarter has a fixed number of protected buildings and demand outruns them from November to February. Boat charters are also charged per boat rather than per person, which makes them good value for four and expensive for two.

The scenery is identical because it is the same karst field. Lan Ha carries far fewer boats, so the anchorages are quieter and the caves are not queued. That is the only real difference, and for most people it is the one that matters.

Yes, and some people want the name on the document. Say so and we will book a boat from the Quang Ninh side at a similar standard. The drive is about half an hour longer and the anchorages are busier.

Board around noon, lunch while the boat moves out, kayak or swim in the afternoon, sunset at anchor, dinner aboard, then a quiet evening because there is nowhere to go. Next morning there is a cave or a beach before an early brunch, and you are back at the pier by eleven.

Licensed overnight boats are inspected and carry life jackets in every cabin and on deck. The parts to check are the age of the hull, whether the operator runs its own boat or sells cabins on someone else's, and where it overnights. We charter from a short list and can tell you the boat name before you pay.

If you have literally one spare day and will not otherwise see the river, it shows you something. Expect a fixed sequence of stops shared with several hundred other people and treat it as a sample rather than a visit. Two nights further down is a different experience entirely.

Cai Rang is, in the wholesale hours before about 08:00, and it is smaller than it was because roads took the trade. Phong Dien is smaller and more local. Cai Be near My Tho is now largely arranged for visitors, and we would not send you there for the market itself.

One night of each is the pattern that works. Homestays give you the food and the family, with thin walls, fans rather than air conditioning in the cheaper ones, and an early start whether you wanted one or not. After two nights of that most people want a real bathroom.

Yes, by river from Chau Doc through the Vinh Xuong border to Phnom Penh, taking five to eight hours depending on the boat and the queue at immigration. It needs a Cambodian visa arranged in advance for most nationalities, and it is the most interesting way to make that crossing.

Only from a distance, without flash, standing across the street and not kneeling in the line. Do not buy rice from the street vendors to offer, because the quality is poor and the monks cannot refuse it. If any of that feels uncomfortable, skip it entirely and go to the morning market instead, which starts at the same hour and is a better window on the town anyway.

For most people, yes. It takes about two hours, it is comfortable, and it climbs through country you cannot otherwise see. Build in the transfer to the station, which is twelve kilometres out, and book several days ahead in high season because the trains do sell out.

Physically yes, and it is a wasted day. They are in opposite directions, both are river-paced, and compressing them means two hours of driving in the middle and neither done properly. It is the clearest argument for the third night.

Hotels cost roughly the same, food costs a little more because much of it is imported, and internal transport is markedly more expensive because the distances are long and the roads are slow. The saving is that you need fewer moving parts here than anywhere else in the region.

You can see one region properly in a week. The north with Hanoi and the bay, or the centre with Hue and Hoi An, both work well in seven days on the ground. What does not work is north to south in a week, which is two internal flights and three hotel check-ins in six usable days.

One day covers Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm, and many people do exactly that. Three days lets you go out at 06:00, come back through the worst of the heat, and return in the late afternoon, which is when the temples are best. It also reaches Banteay Srei and the outer group, which a one-day visit never does.

We count it, but we do not schedule it. Most long-haul arrivals land in the morning after an overnight flight, and we leave that afternoon free. When we say a fifteen-day trip, that is fifteen days on the ground, of which roughly thirteen are usable.

We will say no, and explain why: four internal flights inside eight usable days leaves no stop longer than one night. We will then offer two countries in the same ten days, which costs less and is a better trip. If three countries is non-negotiable, another operator will sell it to you.

No. We send you the official application route for each country on your itinerary, along with the hotel addresses, dates and confirmation letter that the forms ask for. We do not apply on your behalf, hold passports, or take a commission from any visa service. The application is yours to make and the rules should be confirmed with the relevant embassy or consulate before you fly.

No. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos each issue their own visa with its own fee, validity and application route. There is no combined Indochina visa, and a visa for one country gives you no rights in another.

Start as soon as your international flights are ticketed, and aim to hold every approval at least three weeks before departure. Electronic approvals are often issued within days, but systems go offline, applications are returned for photograph problems, and a rejected application needs time to correct.

We re-check the official sources in the month before departure and write to you if anything relevant has moved. That is a courtesy and not a guarantee, so please check again yourself in the same period. If a change makes a route impossible we will redraw the itinerary rather than let you travel into a problem.

Ask for it by email and we will send the licence details in writing, together with the company name the licence is held in, so you can check it rather than take a number printed on a web page on trust.

Yes, and we prefer it to reviews. Tell us the route and the country you are writing from, we ask two or three past guests for permission, and you talk to whoever agrees without us on the thread.

If nobody who matches your route and language has agreed to be contacted, we will tell you that plainly instead of offering a loose substitute.

We contract drivers, guides and boats directly in both countries, as we do in Vietnam. Hotels are booked rather than owned. Specialist activities such as a cooking school or a permitted temple photographer are run by the specialist, and those appear as named lines in your quote.

The 24-hour number for the region is answered by someone with your itinerary in front of them, and it is a different line from the planning number for exactly this reason. Your planner also leaves a written handover for every trip in the field.

A solo traveller can book, but the trip is priced as a two-person booking with a single supplement, because vehicles and guides are charged per day rather than per head. On set departures a single traveller pays the single room supplement only, which is much cheaper.

Quotes and invoices are in US dollars. Bank transfers are accepted in USD; the payment page explains what happens if your bank converts from another currency and who carries the exchange difference.

We tell everyone booked at least six weeks before departure and offer either the same trip at the same price with fewer travellers, a date change, or a full refund of everything paid. The booking terms page sets out that undertaking in full.

No, but you need it before you fly, and e-visa processing for Vietnam can take up to five working days in busy months. We send a reminder with the balance invoice and check passport validity at the same time.

Yes, and we have stopped rounding it down. It is 285 kilometres of mountain road with an average speed under 40 kilometres an hour, plus a lunch stop. We leave at 07:30 and arrive between 15:30 and 16:00.

The alternative people ask about is the Luang Prabang to Xieng Khouang flight, which would mean backtracking from Nong Khiaw and then relying on a route that is cancelled often enough that we will not build an itinerary around it.

Stand on the opposite pavement, stay seated or low if you are close, no flash, and do not buy rice from the kerbside sellers to offer yourself unless you are a practising Buddhist and have arranged it properly through your hotel.

Our guide walks you to a spot away from the main tourist stretch on Sakkaline Road and explains this before you go out, at about 05:20. If it still feels intrusive when you are standing there, leaving is the right answer and nobody minds.

On this itinerary, very low risk. The jar sites are cleared and marked, the paths between them are cleared, and you stay on them. The people who are hurt are farmers opening new ground and children who pick things up, roughly forty to sixty casualties a year nationally in recent years, down from several hundred in the 1990s.

The practical rule is the one the markers state: walk on the white side of the marker, never step off a path at a jar site, and do not touch metal objects on the ground anywhere in the province.

Only by dropping either Nong Khiaw or the Plain of Jars, and both cuts leave a worse trip than a shorter one elsewhere. Luang Prabang, Kuang Si and the Mekong make a decent five-day trip on their own, and we will price that instead rather than compress this.

Six to fourteen is the band it was built for. Six is the point at which a child can manage the Trang An boat and a full day of moving about in heat; fourteen is roughly where free afternoons start to feel like a waste of a holiday.

Outside that band we will still quote it, but we will tell you which days we would change. With a four-year-old we shorten day four and drop the cycling; with a sixteen-year-old we usually swap a Hoi An day for a day on a motorbike pillion through the Hai Van pass with a driver.

Confirmed at the four land hotels, in writing, before you pay the balance. If a hotel cannot hold them we change hotel rather than tell you at check-in. The boat is the exception: a family cabin there means two bedrooms off one lobby with a shared bathroom, and no vessel in Lan Ha has a connecting door in the sense you mean.

We send a note to every hotel and the boat before arrival, and plain steamed rice, noodles without sauce, chicken, bread and fruit are available at every meal on the trip. The cooking class adapts too. What we will not do is arrange a separate Western menu at every stop, because it turns a two-hour lunch into a negotiation and the children usually eat what the family next to them is eating anyway.

The Ninh Binh dyke paths and the Hoi An paddy lanes carry farm traffic and scooters at walking pace, not cars. Helmets are provided and worn. We ride with a guide in front and the driver behind in the vehicle, and we do not cycle in the old town of Hoi An during the evening. If a child cannot ride independently, a tandem trailer bike is available at both stops and we need to know two weeks ahead.