I just want to say thank you to Quyen and all his crew at this great firm. Trustworthy, accountable, and hard working folks made our recent adventure to Vietnam and Cambodia wonderful. Count on them to fulfill your expectations.

We were pleasantly surprised by Mr. Duong Dai Lam (“LAM”)’s attentiveness to our needs via email for months before the trip. He was very professional, flexible, and accommodated all of our needs for our 4 day, 3 night (homestays) trekking tour of Sapa Valley.

We were picked up at our hotel in Hanoi by one of the Asia Pioneer people. He escorted us to the train station and then made sure we got on the train in the exact cabin. (We splurged to buy out the whole 4-berth cabin for 2 of us…it was WORTH IT! No one to bother you and you can lock the door while you are sleeping, only $144 per person total).

Mr. Lam had booked us with a local Sapa tour company called “Trails of Mountains.” Our guide picked us up with a driver at 5am in the morning to drive 1 hour through the mountains to a hotel where we could take a shower and rest before our first day of trekking. It was surprising easy.

Mr. Nga was one of the most knowledgeable, fun, athletic, and kindest tour guides I have ever met. He absolutely made our trip. We had a private tour with Mr. Nga, which meant we did a lot of hiking (some strenuous parts, but worth it)….we went off the beaten path and really experienced Sapa. He seemed to know all of Sapa Valley like the back of his hand. It was amazing!

Mr. Nga was a great translator during the homestays as well. The homestays were fascinating! I would caution that they are provincial in that there is no air conditioning, little running water, and/or plumbing in some places. However, that is what we expected and didnt mind at all.

Hands down, the food in the Homestays were probably some of the best meals I have EVER eaten. Everything in the meal was fresh from the garden or farm (I mean everything, meat, fruits/vegetables, grains, herbs). DELICIOUS!

All in all, the tour was amazing. I would highly recommend to everyone. Mr. Lam and Mr. Nga were absolutely fantastic. Ask for them 🙂

The only thing I would caution about the booking with Asia Pioneer: it is better to pay everything before you start the tour, we paid 50% before we arrived in Vietnam and had to pay the rest while waiting at the Hanoi station for the train to Sapa (it was sort of a hassle).

Overall, a fantastic experience, we would definitely book with them again! Thanks Lam and Nga!

I first heard about Asia Pioneer at tripadvisor and I decided to write an enquiry email right away. Best choice ever! 🙂 Got my first answer from Kata (our contact person for the whole time) within 24 hours and the first offer was very good. But until we could finally book the trip we had to do a lot of chances – no problem for Kata at all, she put in whatever I asked her to in our program. About the hotels we totally trusted her knowledge. We just wanted to have 3 to 4 star hotels. And I have to say every hotel that we stayed at was perfect for our needs, breakfast was always included. As were the entrance fees and meals if mentioned in our program.

About our tour: we did a 3 1/2 weeks Vietnam and Cambodia tour – all organised by Kata. In total we had 3 (international) flights, two trainrides (Hanoi – Sa Pa retourn) , a night at a boat in Halong Bay and the rest in “normal” hotels.
Everything worked out perfectly – we got a mobile phone at the beginning of our trip to call Kata at anytime if problems would occur. We had to do that once and within minutes our problem was solved, eventhough it was already 10 pm!

Every tour guide we had made a perfect job and tried to fullfill every of our wishes. It was no problem to stop by somewhere, leave early or late, whatever we wanted too do. Íf we wanted to buy typical stuff we got help negotiating the prices.
In Sa Pa our tour guide cooked a meal in a homestay house for us – a thing we wouldn’t have asked for as we wouldn’t have know that this would be possible! And we loved it!

All in all, I would not consider a second about booking my trip with Indochina Pinoeer again, I would just do it. We talked to people who did everything on their own, it was neither cheaper nor more relaxing or anything. It was just nice to have somebody taking care of us wherever we were.

We met Kata once in Hanoi – she extra came to our breakfast restaurant in the mornging – and it was really nice to finally see the person, I’ve been writing to emails for about 5 months.

It’s hardly to say what we liked most: but Sa Pa should be a must on every Vietnam trip and I would definitly go to Cambodia too, if I’m there, as it’s not a very long journey and absolutely worth it. Halong Bay was also beautiful too, of course. Vietnam in general is a very beautiful country with lots of different things to do and see, I wouldn’t want to miss anything that we did on our trip! It was just perfect as it was!

Thank you again, Kata and everybody else that made our trip unforgetable!

What a fantastic holiday we have just had. Lam from Asia Pioneer organised a private tour for the four of us, I would definitely recommend a private tour over a large group tour. It is just like having a local friend show you around each area. We were able to experience things that would not have been possible in a larger group – like the food tours which were fantastic, visiting small local shops to taste the delicious food and other activities like the basket boats and Sampan rides – just not possible in a large group.
We did a 15 day Best of Vietnam tour of Hanoi, Sapa, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. The tour had a good level of content and many meals included. We have come home with some great memories and photos.
Hanoi with its busy traffic was a great introduction to the tour. We enjoyed walking through the minority villages in Sapa and the Huong Hai Sealife Cruise on Halong Bay was excellent. The boat, like the hotels we stayed in were all high quality. The hotels were also located well so that we could easily get around in our spare time. Hoi An is a great spot to visit and we enjoyed the village and also the other activities like the basket boat rides, another great food tour and a visit to My Son Holy Land. In Saigon we enjoyed our trip to the Mekong Delta where we we embarked on a scenic boat trip on the Ben Tre River, a Sampan and Motor Cart ride, and a delicious lunch. We also found the Cu Chi Tunnels interesting
The guides were great and spoke English well. Tuan, Sissy, Bao and Larry- thanks for showing us around. We enjoyed your jokes Bao! The drivers were also good and thanks to the driver in Hue/Hoi An who was always ready with a bottle of icy cold water after we had been out and about.
I found Asia Pioneer Tours on tripadvisor and was impressed by their high ratings and reviews. We were not disappointed and are very happy that we chose this tour over the larger group tour we had been looking at.

as a group of 13 women, we had a fantastic 5-day private customized tour of siem reap and the vicinity. incredible beauty. and pascale was a kind and informative guide.

We just returned from a fantastic two weeks in Cambodia & Vietnam, all expertly organized by Asia Pioneer on fairly short notice. Within 45 minutes of my first email inquiry, Kata Tran was calling to begin arranging an itinerary that included everything we wanted to see and more. The trip ran smoothly from start to finish, there were no surprises, and all of the activities/hotels/arrangements were excellent. My husband and I travel internationally all the time for work, so we know how many things can go wrong, but with Indochina P, everything went right and it was so nice to be in the good hands of Kata, our guides and drivers – we managed to squeeze in a ton of sightseeing in Siem Reap, HCMC, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi and Halong Bay. Do not miss Halong Bay or a cooking class in Hoi An! Special thanks to our fantastic guides Tam in HCMC and Tony in Hanoi. If you are thinking about booking through Asia Pioneer — don’t think any more, just do it, you will not regret it. This was probably the best trip we have ever taken!

My wife and I just returned from 16 days in Cambodia and Vietnam. Lam at Asia Pioneer worked with us from our first inquiry all the way through our last day. He always answered any question or concern very promptly. He was very professional and very nice to work with. In fact we had the pleasure of meeting him for lunch in Hanoi.

Every hotel, flight, tour and guide he booked for us was as good or better than promised. We had four guides in total and they were all knowledgeable, reliable and very friendly.

The entire operation is first-rate.