From first email to departure day

Typical elapsed time from first email to a confirmed trip is one to three weeks, and most of that is you thinking rather than us working.

1. You write. Dates, party size, nights available, budget band, two things you refuse to miss. A paragraph is enough and there is no form to fill in.
2. We reply within one working day with a named planner, a rough price range and any question we cannot proceed without.
3. First outline, within two working days of having the answers. A day-by-day route, named hotel categories and an itemised price. It is a working document, not a brochure, and nearly everyone changes something.
4. Two or three rounds of revision. Hotels named and swapped, drive times checked, a night moved from one town to another, costs pushed up or down a line at a time. This stage is free and has no deadline.
5. You accept the quote. We send a booking confirmation listing every service, the total, the payment dates and the cancellation table. Read the services list before you pay, because that list is what we are contracted to deliver.
6. You pay 30%. Bank transfer or a card payment link. We hold hotels, guides, vehicles, boats and domestic flights the same working day the deposit clears, and confirm each one back to you.
7. Balance 30 days before arrival. With it, you get final documents: the day plan, hotel addresses and phone numbers, your guide's name where it is already assigned, and the 24-hour in-country number.
8. Arrival. You are met inside the arrivals hall with a board, not at a kerb. Your planner sends a message the evening before your first full day to confirm the pick-up time.

The honest split. The left column costs an email; the right column costs money or is simply impossible, and we would rather you knew which is which now.

Cancellation percentages by date sit on the booking terms page, together with what happens if we have to cancel a set departure for lack of numbers. The refund banding there is the one that governs your booking.

Travel insurance covering medical treatment, evacuation and repatriation is a condition of travelling with us. We ask for the insurer's name and your policy number before we release final documents, and we will not carry a traveller who declines to supply them.

This is not a formality. A road accident on the Hai Van pass or a diving incident off Cat Ba ends in a private hospital in Hanoi or a medical flight to Bangkok, and both are paid up front in this region. A policy that costs less than one night of your trip is the difference between an insurer settling that and you settling it.

Check three things in the policy you buy: that evacuation and repatriation are included, that the medical limit is at least USD 100,000, and that any activity on your itinerary — trekking above a stated altitude, kayaking, cycling, a motorbike as a passenger — is not excluded. Cancellation cover is your choice; we do not require it, but our own cancellation table is the reason most people buy it.

Payment is by bank transfer to our corporate account, or by Visa and Mastercard through a payment link we send you. The card route carries the processor's fee of roughly three per cent, shown as its own line at cost rather than folded into the price. Bank transfers clear in one to three working days; card payments clear immediately.

Every payment is receipted the same working day it clears. The receipt names the services it covers, so you always have a document showing what is paid for and what is still outstanding. Full bank details, the currency rules and the fee breakdown are set out on the payment page.

We do not take cash deposits, and we never ask you to send money to a personal account. If you receive a message that appears to be from us asking for payment to an account that does not match the details on the payment page, call the office number before you send anything.