East Asia Beach Trips

This tour provides a memorable experience of the culture of SW India. There are many highlights including cruising on the backwaters, experiencing the variety of Indian cuisine, walking in the highlands, visiting a splendid Nepalese Temple, seeing tea production from picking the leaves to producing tea for sale, visiting a coffee plantation and a brief visit to Goa. The hotels are wonderful. This tour gives an good insight to the variety of life in SW India but be prepared for some long distance journeys.... India is a big country!

The itinerary was beyond expectation - each experience was thoughtful and interesting. The variety was brilliant! From the Blue Elephant cooking class to the Hellfire Pass and museum, the range of experiences was amazing. Best of all was the day with the Buddhist Monk - we were all positively changed.

I had the most amazing trip and met so many people, while getting to explore some unbelievable locations - including the Bay of Islands during this short trip. I only regret not booking a longer trip. Contiki made it so easy - all I had to do was show up! The trip manager and bus driver were both really helpful and made the trip worthwhile.

We thoroughly enjoyed this trip in a country about which we knew little in advance. As always with Explore the booking process was very smooth and the trip itself was well planned. It was fast paced, we covered a lot of ground in a fleet of 4x4 vehicles which gave the whole experience an exhilarating feeling. It also meant we experienced the wide variety this country has to offer, coastline, desert, mountains and old towns and villages. The accommodation was generally excellent, especially the desert camp and the View resort with its spectacular location. The decision to spend 2 nights in Nizwa worked well and the town centre location of the hotel was a great base for wandering Our guide, Muatasim, looked after us very well. He was passionate about his country and made sure we all had a good experience. A lot of the time we travelled in a vehicle with 4 people and we were very lucky to have a driver, Harib, who spoke good English and was keen to help us understand his country. He was also a brilliant driver! Overall we really enjoyed our experience of Oman and would thoroughly recommend this trip

Sri Lanka in Depth was a wonderful experience and, even though we were moving around a lot, it meant we saw so much of the country. So many different experiences, from lovely beach hotels, to jeep safaris, to seeing the ancient sites of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. I would definitely recommend Sri Lanka as a beautiful country to visit. The food is also delicious. Our tour guide, Niruth Ashendra (Ash) was so knowledgeable about his country and went out of his way to ensure we all had an excellent trip.

Abhi was an excellent leader with excellent attention to detail and care. Nothing was too much for him. The overall experience was excellent and all the accommodation except at Goa was first rate. In Goa we were in a hotel room above a noisy band for a wedding that went on until 3..00am. After much persuasion we were moved late the following evening to a more suitable room. I would not recommend staying there in future but everything else was excellent especially our tour guide leader.