16 Dec 2018
I strongly encourage you to book a tour with Vana Adventures! My partner and I did a half-day biking trip on the silk islands, and later we joined up with 2 other friends to do a 3-day hiking and camping trip in Kirirom National Park.
Thong is:
-- responsive (the only company with which I communicated which always responded within 24 hours, sometimes less!)
-- flexible (I requested that we make a modification to one aspect of the trip and he made it happen even though it involved a third party)
-- organized and professional (he was always early! transportation was great, he always had lots of water, meals and accommodation all worked, zero problems in 2 trips/4 days)
-- made the trip personal (he brought leftover sweets from his relative’s wedding for the drive, also we ended up storing some extra bags at his house and met his wife and kids)
-- shared lots of interesting information about Khmer culture, history, foods, etc.
-- most importantly, he is laid back and has a great sense of humour!
Thong’s company is small and Cambodian! Booking with Vana Adventures is therefore “socially responsible tourism” in the sense that it benefits locals (he increasingly has staff help lead tours, and he hires people to help with meals, accommodation, transportation, etc.), more so than big foreign companies do.
About the tours themselves:
-- I strongly recommend the half-day biking of the silk islands. It’s a lot of fun taking ferries and going from island to island. We saw lots of different villages and houses, and learned lots about Buddhism too! Thong actually picked us up at the hotel by bike because we were