Local guides and tour leaders
In our opinion, local guides or tour leaders are undoubtedly one of the most important elements of any small group tour to Southeast Asia. Even with the best itinerary and the most amazing destinations, your guide is still key while an excellent guide can still save a tour which encounters problems. (In 25 years, we’ve dealt with floods, civil unrest, volcanoes, landslides and a general assortment of ‘acts of God’.) Their intimate local knowledge, combined with plenty of flexibility and an ability to think on their feet, has enabled us to successfully overcome everything that’s been thrown at us.
Apart from a few of our multi-tasking office staff – Wi leads many of the Thailand tours, Pascal the French language trips and Mark most of the Cambodia tours – the majority of our local leaders and guides are freelancers. There are, of course, low and high seasons and as a small, family-run tour operator, we’re not in a position to employ large numbers of full-time, year-round local staff. Having said that, happily, most of our regular freelancers seem to enjoy running our style of tours – with small group sizes, off-the-beaten-track destinations and so on – so, given sufficient notice, will prioritise All Points East tours on their dance cards.
Below is a brief country-by-country rundown of just a few of our regular local guides and tour leaders, as well as descriptions of how tours to those destinations pan out. As many of our regular guests know, each country has, for various reasons, a slightly different system. (Blog post length, and in some instances a lack of decent photos, means we’ve inevitably missed a few people out, so apologies in advance.) We’ll also point out that while many guides are featured wearing All Points East shirts, they are in no way compulsory. They are, however, particularly useful when meeting new guests at airports and again, we’re happy to say that, as far as we know, all local staff are proud to wear them.)
Always a grin on his face; Chet or Vichet Chou to give his full name Cambodia
Possessing a smattering of Khmer along with a nerd-level knowledge of Angkorian temples, most Cambodia tours tend to be run by Mark, in conjunction with local guides at each point. (i.e. Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Battambang.) However, to cut down on airfares, smaller groups and many private and family tours will be led by one of our regular local guides, Chet or Nak. The brothers hail from Siem Reap, have been working with us for many, many years and one of the two will certainly be familiar to anyone who’s been on any of our Cambodia tours. Both have excellent language skills, great senses of humour and are as happy joining you for an apres-temple chat and a cold one as they are taking you around Angkor Wat.
Indonesia
Indonesia is a relatively new destination for us, although we struck lucky with our freelancers for the Java and Sumatra tours. Medan-based Lily (or Lilik), pictured left, has managed to lead all our Sumatra tours so far, with Ari from Jogja running our Java to Bali sections as well as being a great help with itinerary details and accommodation suggestions. Freelance guides obviously lead tours for many different tour companies – each of which will have their own ways of doing things – so it was great to see that, after a single training trip, both completely got the All Points East tour philosophy with a relaxed style, some off-the-beaten-track destinations and some great, outside-the-box, local eatery choices. A shout-out also to Nova, who’s received excellent feedback when asked to fill in for the much-in-demand Ari on a couple of occasions.
Ari and Mark about to board the Java to Bali ferry Laos
We’ve been running group tours to Laos for over 20 years now and we can’t remember a tour without Pong. Even though we’ve actually changed our local ground handler a couple of times over the years, Pong, or Chittaphong Chanthakhoune to give him his full name, has never in our memory turned down an All Points East tour. Pong lives in Nam Tha, in northwestern Laos, so runs the northern Laos tours and the Lao sections of our Laos and Vietnam tours. Indeed, many former guests on those tours will also be familiar with his much-loved wife Noy, who regularly acts as co-pilot and assistant leader. (That’s much-loved by our guests as well, of course, by Pong!)
For our South Lao tours, Pheng (Champheng) takes up the reins in Vientiane and as a resident of Pakse in the far south, leads the Vientiane to the Cambodian border section. As with Pong, we’re delighted to see that Pheng never misses a tour either and it’s a great sign that when he hands over to the above-mentioned Chet at the Laos-Cambodian border, our groups are consistently sad to wave him goodbye.
Pong grilling some fish on a hike in Nam Tha Biodiversity Area A brief aside. Pheng replaced Sone, who some may remember as she led our South Lao tours for many years; an unforgettable character who appeared to know just about everybody between Vientiane and Steung Treng. Anyway, she got married and now lives in Illinois, so a loss for All Points East but probably a good move for a village girl from Thakaek.
Malaysia
As with several destinations, to cut down on airfares and keep guides on familiar territory, Malaysia’s geography means we use different guides for different regions, so one for West Malaysia, another for Sarawak and a third for Sabah. (Additional local guides will also join for nature hikes and so on.) Our regular leaders are KL-based Jason, Billy in Kuching and Beverly or Aldrin in Sabah.
Aldrin checking out some street art in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown Sri Lanka
Our go-to guy for Sri Lanka tours is the genial, highly experienced and great fun Prathat. Oddly enough, and you wouldn’t understand to look at him, he’s better known as Chubby. He explained that he was quite a podgy baby and, throwing tact to the wind, his mum gave him the nickname Chubby. As we said, a highly experienced guide but, importantly, a great guy to take you around his country for a couple of weeks.
Chubby with a king coconut on a Pettah street market tour Thailand
For Thailand, we’re lucky enough to have multi-award-winning (Wanderlust Guide of the Year 2016 and Tourism Authority of Thailand ‘Most Responsible Local guide 2024’), Wi, or Wipaporn. Wi, of course, helped set up the company way back in 2000, so is a founder member of All Points East, or Gecko Travel as we were in those days, and, married to Mark, cements our family-business credentials. Wi leads our Thailand small group and Thai family tours with the help of another long-standing All Points East guide, Bangkok-based freelancer Aor. As with most destinations, we also employ specialist local guides for nature hikes and the like in such places as Khao Yai or Khao Sok National Parks.
Wi in Sai Yok National Park, Kanchanaburi Province Vietnam
The country’s geography means that we also tend to split the Hanoi to Saigon and Vietnam World Heritage tours into two in terms of local leaders, with one guide covering the north down to Danang and a Saigon-based guide for the south as well as the Mekong River trip up to Phnom Penh. A Sapa guide leads the Vietnam section of our Laos and Vietnam tours as well, of course, as the Sapa extension. (It’s a big ask to find one single leader whose local knowledge covers a country that’s 1650 kilometres from top to bottom.)
Hop’s our regular guy in Hanoi, while Saigon-based Dalat has led Southern Vietnam and the Mekong Delta tours for many years. Both are, of course, excellent guides but also very interesting characters with Hop being an artist in his spare time, as well as running a blind massage parlour, while Dalat actually studied nuclear physics at Moscow University before taking up guiding.
‘Mr Hop’ in Hanoi Old Town. Multi-country tours
Aside from linguistic and local knowledge factors, guide licensing regulations mean it’s not possible to keep any single local guide for multi-destination tours such as Thailand-Laos, Laos-Cambodia etc. In this case, guide 1 will take you to the airport and see you off, and guide 2 will be waiting with a sign at your destination.
Anyway, just a brief rundown and apologies, but we couldn’t squeeze everybody in!
