Asia Cruise Trips

As stated in the trip notes, this is a fast paced tour that covers a lot of ground. There are some long drives although there are often stops to visit somewhere of interest. Overall the tour was excellent, there was plenty of variety in the programme. The only disappointments were that Puducherry was oversold and there wasn’t much French heritage to see and the trip on the houseboat in the Kerala backwaters was a cruise on the lake and didn’t venture into the canals. The hotels were very good, the final hotel in Mamallapuram was more basic but this was more than offset by its location in the centre of the town. Replacing the overnight train journey with a daytime express train is a good decision by Explore. The food was delicious throughout. We had an excellent tour guide. This tour would be ideal for someone visiting India for the first time.

We benefited from an absolutely brilliant tour guide, Kiran, very experienced and knowledgeable but also highly organised and excellent company! Bhutan was of course the tour highlight with another excellent local guide. We only covered a very small part of the country which could be made into a tour in its own right if possible! It would have been useful for dress code to be included in the tour notes ( long trousers and collared sleeve tops) as some of the party had to buy the latter in Bhutan. Enjoyed everywhere else but a long return trip to Sandurbans to see very little, although a welcome bit of relaxation after Calcutta. Darjeeling and train ride another highlight and staying mid town was appreciated, which we missed in Gangtok and Kathmandu, Accommodation generally good but Summit chain in India variable quality and repetitive menu selection, some variation would be preferable. But all in all a most enjoyable and worthwhile trip expertly guided

An excellent itinerary, well paced and great accommodation. Our guide Abhi was truly excellent, kind, attentive and concerned that we had a good time. He went out of his way to accommodate our wishes and used local knowledge to find great places to eat. Well organised, he scouted out the opportunity to visit a spice garden because we showed an interest, and a place to see an elephant. Would thoroughly recommend this trip.

Excellent tour, excellent tour leader. My only criticisms are that the tour was 1 or 2 temples too many and that the leader gave too many statistics and tended to repeat himself in his obvious enthusiasm

This the third time we engaged Asia..this time we covered Yunan Province. As before all our travel needs of hotels,transportations , tour guides etc..... were well arranged for us to cover our intended tour itineraries to our greatest satisfactions. .will surely recommend it to our friends and others.

We've traveled with Explore many times, including another tour in Japan, and we really enjoyed this trip. Our guide, Doni, was excellent and kept things on track nicely. The accommodations were great, varying from more simple to nice hotels. This tour covered not only large city options, but some very rural areas, which we really enjoyed. Everything ran quite smoothly and there were no delays with transport or any of the daily events. I think we gained a deeper understanding of Japan, which was part of our purpose in taking this trip. We would highly recommend this Explore tour to other guests.