Kimkim Trip Reviews for Laos

Amazing adventure trip in Laos, made especially great for being there during Lao New Year Celebrations. Organisation in advance, bookings and communications were excellent thanks to Steve. On arrival in Luang Prabang, local guide Phonsie provided first class service. He is most knowledgeable and so proud of Lao culture and history - the tour of temples and museums in Luang Prabang was very informative.
Equally, the time in Luang Namtha and the National Park was brilliantly led by Onh who took great care of us along with the local guide Mr Sing. All first class and they were able to tailor the hike to meet our requirements.

Touring Laos is the second time we've used kimkim (previously Nepal) and the platform continues to be a very good system for convenience, reliability and enjoying a tailored and authentic experience.

Luang Prabang is a charming French colonial town with an easy, relaxed vibe. Our arrival during Pi Mai Lao (Laotian new year) was fortunate and allowed us to enjoy the riotous celebrations, largely involving spraying anyone and everyone with water to wash away sins and start afresh. Our excellent local guide Phonsey was knowledgeable, had very good English and invited us to participate in the Pi Mai parade. Great fun! The Homm hotel arranged by our local specialist Steve was excellent.

Hiking in the Nam Ha National Park - about 70 minutes by bullet train (yes, bullet train) from Luang Prabang - was challenging and off the established routes. Three ~16km days with significant ascents / descents on lightly formed tracks. Sleeping on banana leaves and no showers is not for everyone, but it was absolutely fascinating to learn from our wonderful local guides On ('bamboo rat') and Mr Sing how to live off the harvest of the jungle - palm, banana flower, native herbs, crabs & shrimp caught from the streams. Beautiful scenery and rivers to swim in.

My trip to Chiang Mai and Laos went exactly as planned by Doris! Someone was waiting for me as I arrived in Chiang Mai, Luang Prabang, Paske, and Vientiane. All of my guides were courteous, spoke clear English, were knowledgeable, and friendly. My drivers all drove very safely in clean, well maintained vehicles. My favorites were 1) visiting the Elephant Sanctuary outside of Chiang Mai; 2) the Plain of Jars; 3) the scenic yet bumpy drive to/from the PoJ; 4) swimming & zipline at Xangvieng; 5) the many beautiful waterfalls near Paske.

An unforgettable visit!! Our guide was so knowledgeable and fun!!! We were sad to say goodbye!

The trip was terrific. All of the accommodations were excellent. My only criticism is that Ashley wasn't available for long stretches. At one point I had to reach out to the emergency contact. In my previous Kimkim trips my travel planner was always available to respond to my questions m

Hotel Review

Aira Hotel Bangkok

Bangkok

I stayed at the Aira Hotel Bangkok, which was nice, but a more conventional hotel than the other places we stayed.

Activity Review

Full day Khao Yai National Park tour with lunch

Bangkok

The full day Khao Yai National Park tour was a pleasant experience. We did a nice hike through the jungle but did not have the luck to see elephants, which was a bit disappointing. However, I understand that these are wild animals and sightings aren't guaranteed. In retrospect, it might have been nice to have the option to visit another park with possibly better opportunities to see elephants, but the one we visited was still enjoyable.

Tui, our guide, was amazing. He is such a warm and pleasant person to spend a week with. He is helpful, resourceful, insightful, intelligent, and fun. We had a wonderful experience and holiday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We would recommend this to many people. The trip worked like clockwork and was a great pleasure and we will look to do more holidays with Grasshopper. Tui should be commended for being a great guide. We had no incidents in the whole trip. The Sennali hotel was a poor experience with the noise from the speaker announcements at night. we suggest changing this hotel as it is not comfortable also.

Thank you for a wonderful holiday.

Overall, the trip was very good. There could have been a lot more communication about the daily itinerary and I wish that there had been more optionality provided for what was done each day. For example, when visiting the Elephant Sanctuary, there were several tour options that the sanctuary provided, but one of the tour was just selected for me without providing me an option (when I would have preferred to be on another tour). Also, I feel like many of the days ended the activities earlier than expected without any option to visit more sites or deviate from the itinerary. Overall, while the tour was great, I was expecting more for the money that I paid (even despite the fact that I realize I paid a premium for being a solo traveler).

Andy was phenomenal in some respects, especially when I was presented with a health issue. But again, some of my comments about the optionality of the trip and the communication could have applied. I think we could have come up with a more tailed trip for me if I had been provided more options and there had been more communication.