An “Outstanding Holiday” thanks to Asia Pioneer and their most helpful staff. Organised a 7 day private independent tour through Laos on short notice and cannot commend them enough on their diligence for organising a faultless trip. Well, I would have to say that our trip to Laos was very memorable due to our fantastic driver ‘Jai’ who navigated those winding roads without incidence and ‘Sunny’ our guide, must also be commended on his terrific job. His knowledge and passion for his country, cheery nature and friendliness added to the overall experience.
The flexibility of the private tour allowed us the opportunity to stop and immerse ourselves into the local culture visiting schools and villages.
We travelled in April which can be the hottest month but found it relatively mild (maybe we were just lucky) although we didn’t avoid the distant smoke haze from the countryside farmers burning off their fields.
The trip organisation was superb!! Not once did we encounter any problems.
I would not hesitate to refer Asia Pioneer Travel onto anyone wishing for an Asian experience.

This trip was our second to Vietnam. Two years ago, Kata Tran at Asia Pioneer put together a four week trip for us to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This year we returned for four weeks to Vietnam only. And Kata did it again! We had visited so many primary tourist sites on our first trip that we weren’t sure if a second trip would seem repetitive even though this time we were interested in a leisurely beach-style vacation. Somehow, Kata managed to combine beach and exploration perfectly. Again, as on our previous trip, every stop was a highlight. This year Kata incorporated a “home-stay” at Coco Riverside Lodge along the Mekong. We stayed in a spacious, air-conditioned bungalow, surrounded by lush foliage in a rural village along the Mekong. We interacted with local residents, ate in a charming on-site restaurant and took lovely boat cruises daily to surrounding areas all of course with our hosts and guide. The three beach areas that Kata arranged for us were all different and offered varying experiences and amenities from city style beachfront, to luxurious resort. We visited the highlands of Da Lat and a national park and bear preserve. Each stop was new and perfectly planned with drivers, guides, and alone-time as requested. Kata is a master at listening and responding and delivering!

It is not that Asia Pioneer got us around to the “must see” and typical tourist sites so well – it was the consistent quality, across the board, of everything we did, including the “off program” items! Kids hot and sweaty in Saigon, they were there with a suggestion of a water park! Group getting too hot and tired to trek around the Hmoung village? Switch gears and visit the house of an individual family. Interested in watching a cart pulley sand up a hill? Let’s stop the bus and hang out and do that. Would you like to visit an orphanage/do some social outreach on your trip? That can be planned too (in our case, our trip was two families providing a heritage trip for our adopted Vietnamese chiilldren to see their roots, hence the orphanage visits where our kids presented gifts and money – sort of a “give back” to their roots- by the way, the entire Indochina Pionner staff got behind that – the purpose and goal of the trip – so proud to show off our children’s birth country to them, so happy that the children, given their challenging start in life, went on to live a good life in America). Our trip was the perfect combination of a more or less set agenda and adventure/serendipity. Viet Nam is a wonderful, colorful,confusing, exciting place to travel. With the right amount of input and free time, it is awesome.

Even though this company is listed as “private day tours”, they do it all! We had some unique requests for our trip to Vietnam, and Asia Pioneer spent months communicating with us through prompt and efficient e-mails to get everything just right. The activities planned for us were of excellent quality, and the local tour guides were courteous, caring and extremely personable. The owners of the company communicated with us several times throughout the trip to be sure things were going well, and we still hear from them, now weeks after we are home. We felt as though we were the company’s only clients! I would highly recommend Asia Pioneer when considering Asian travel.