Customer reviews and what they say

Read and use the information pack provided. Listen to the guides recommendations. Try everything.

Don't bring insect repellent and sunscreen in spraycans or spray bottles if travelling to Laos. Bring them as creams or lotions in squeeze bottles or tubes instead. This is because bags are scanned and checked before train travel there, and these items are confiscated as inflammables as they are marked as so on the cans. Western tourists tend to be the targets here, as most local and SE Asian travellers do not bother packing these 2 items on their travels within SE Asia.

Food - was very interesting throughout the trip. We eat a lot of asian food in the UK anyway. We found Malay food hard to define and it felt like an indian-chinese fusion. We ate in Thai, Japanese and Chinese restaurants as we travelled around and these we all really excellent. Peninsula: We had 2 days in KL and it was barely enough. Its an amazing big asian city. Ipoh was disappointing as a town and didn't really cater for tourists. We came to do the white water rafting, but this was quite tame and I wouldn't visit Ipoh again. Penang was amazing - Georgetown was very different to KL and Ipoh, and the variety was great to see. We found a lovely japanese restaurant (Tonari) and a cool art cafe serving lovely fresh juices on Armenian Street (Jalan Armenian) We didn't really have time to venture much away from Georgetown. Repeating this part of the trip, I would just spend 3 days in KL and 3 days in Penang. Sarawak - Kuching is a lovely place to be, much more relaxed and cleaner than Peninsula. The cycle tour was great fun and our spare time was enough to walk into the riverside repeatedly. The trip to the batang Ai reservoir, Iban longhouse and 'jungle camp' was an absolute treat. It is a long travel, but completely worthwhile. You feel completely alone in the world BUT there isn't much wildlife to see. This is a trip into the natural world and trekking for the sake of it Sabah was amazing. KK was another cool city and the shangri-La Tanjung Aru hotel was beautiful and very close to the airport (but we never heard planes). Its definitely worthwhile taking a trip out to Gaya Island - we used a catamaran (Mawali) for a whole day trip and it was magical, especially for the kids. Jerry and Joels looked after us brilliantly. The sea was very warm but was not as clear as i had hoped for. Make sure you get out of the hotel to eat at least once - we headed for Gaya Street and had a great chinese meal at Ding Ji. Sandakan was also brilliant - the orang-utan sanctuary is a must, the sun bears less so. Sepilok Nature Resort was beautiful and we could easily have spent another day chilling here. We then went up the kingabatangan river and spent two nights in a fabulous camp - Kinabatangan Wetlands Resort - which was also brilliant. We did lots of beautiful boat trips, and although a bit repetitive we did see lots of wildlife - monkeys, macaques, crocs, snakes, birds etc and on our last trip wild orang-utans! Overall an amazing 3.5 weeks.

South Jeollanam-do was very worth visiting and no non-Koreans which made it much more interesting for us. We had an excellent guide, Mr. Hong.

Tam Coc Gardens in Ninh Binh was stunning and we'd have loved to spend more time there! Our guide in northern Vietnam, Tony was excellent. Really funny, and has a serious depth of knowledge. If you're doing the Vespa Adventures in Hoi An, ask for Onion Phi, another favourite guide we met!

Cooking experiences are always good and a trip to Fang if going to Northern Thailand is a must.