About Mekong Charm

Most tours are planned by listing what to see and then fitting the travel around it. We plan the other way. We start with the person in your party who will tire first, and write down what the day asks of them: hours in a vehicle, the longest single drive, boat boardings, steps and monkey bridges, shade, toilets and the midday rest. Then we choose the stops that fit.

That is where the ease table comes from. Some of its lines come from published sources, such as road distances and climate data, and we cite them with the date we checked. Others describe our plan, and we label them so. We do not print numbers we cannot stand behind, such as the height of a step at a tidal landing.

We also say what a place is not. Cai Rang is a much smaller market than it was; Cai Be's floating market has faded; the crossing area at Thoi Son is busy and partly staged. You will read that on our pages before you read it in a review.

• Large groups. Our pace depends on one party in one or two vehicles. Above about ten people it breaks.
• Active trips. No cycling, kayaking or long walks. Others do these properly.
• Homestays and village stays. Our nights are in hotels with private bathrooms.
• Long circuits, cruises and lodges. We do not plan trips of five days or more, overnight boats or luxury lodges.
• Fully step-free days. We can reduce steps a great deal, but not to zero on a day with boats or old houses, and we say so.
• Last-minute certainty. On very short notice we may not secure child seats or a hotel with a lift.

We do not publish reviews or testimonials here. Reviews on a company's own site are chosen by the company, and you have no way to check them. What we publish instead is the detail you would use to judge a review: the drive times, the boardings, the rest, what is included and what is not.

A quote is a day plan, not a brochure. It lists, for each day: the pick-up time and place; the vehicle type and the child seats we have secured; each stop with its approximate time; each boat, whether it is private or shared, and how many boardings; the meals and where they are eaten; the rest period; and, on two-day trips, the hotel by name with its room type and whether it has a lift. The ease table comes with it, filled in for your date.

Below that comes a single price for the whole party, what it includes and what it does not. If something on the plan is a request rather than a confirmation, such as an early check-in, the quote says so in words.