Laos country tour, tailor made holiday
This trip can be tailor made to create a unique holiday for your individual requirements by travel experts with intimate knowledge of the destination. Sites and accommodations can be arranged to suit you and your budget. This is a comfortable trip that will suit those who enjoy immersing themselves in new cultures and environments before relaxing in comfort in characterful local accommodation!
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Throughout this journey we often use less intrusive and more environmentally friendly forms of transport such as cyclo rides through Hanoi and Hoi.
We encourage all of our travellers to travel responsibly and offer advice on how they can best help local people through charitable donations and the purchase of certain goods. We also offer guidance, both verbal and written, on how travellers can best help and preserve the local environment.
This company is also committed to measuring and assuming responsibility for our carbon emissions. We have worked with Cleaner Climate to offset emissions from our Australian, United Kingdom and USA offices during 2011. The emission reductions are generated from Clean Technology (Kyoto compliant) projects in India (run-of-river hydro), Thailand (rice husk biomass), and China (hydro). These not only reduce emissions, but also contribute to the sustainable development of disadvantaged communities.
Community
We believe that travel should entail an exchange of knowledge and perspectives, a sharing of wealth, and a genuine appreciation of Laos’s beautiful natural environment. This philosophy underpins the heart and soul of our style of travel. We recognise that poorly planned itineraries or poorly informed tourists contribute less to cross-cultural understanding and less to the livelihoods of local people.
This journey represents the best of the region’s forgotten gem. Commencing in northern Thailand we cross the border into Laos to board our slowboat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. En route we stay overnight in a unique ecolodge where we can mingle with the villagers and go panning for gold! The ecolodge is responsible for generating revenue and employment for the local Kamu peoples. Once in the charming town of Luang Prabang we travel to the picturesque Kuang Si waterfalls, one of the many beautiful waterfalls near Luang Prabang. On the way to the falls we stop at a Hmong hill tribe village and gain an insight into the lifestyle of one of the most significant ethnic minorities in Indochina.
Like most minority groups in Laos, the Hmong originally migrated from China. Known as ‘montagnards’ (highlanders) by the French, many Hmong in Indochina were recruited to south Vietnamese and Royal Lao forces in the 1970s, in the hope of being rewarded with an autonomous homeland.
On this journey our local guides are trained to share their knowledge of cultural and other local issues in a balanced, informative way; in this journey alone you are likely to meet several local guides from different provinces in Laos. They share real experiences from their own lives and insights into their family life, influences and beliefs, thus providing our travellers with a deeper understanding of the places they visit. This is what motivates our guides, not shopping commissions.
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