My husband and I took the 4 day 3 night Chiang Rai tour with Thailand Hilltribe Holidays in November 2015.
Prior to our trip, our dealings with the company were positive. All correspondence was dealt with promptly and our requests were attended to immediately. Sak and Goh met us at the agreed time at our guesthouse in Chiang Mai. Initial thoughts were very positive. The vehicle was great and the first interaction we had with Sak was excellent. We shared where we are from and chatted about where we would go over the tour. Sak purchased an offering for the trip which was really cool. Sak and Goh also took us to many local places to eat meals which were very affordable and which we really appreciated. These trips included some of my best experiences of the tour. We wholeheartedly enjoyed our interactions with Goh, who did try to ensure we felt happy and comfortable throughout the tour.
Overall positives for the trip were the car, which had plenty of space for us, our guide, and the driver. The vehicle was comfortable for the whole trip. Goh was an excellent driver and I felt comfortable with his skills, even in some tough terrain (hairpin turns) and environments (torrential downpours with rain, etc). Sak's language skills were better than I expected and he had lots of knowledge about each stop, more than I expected. Sak was interesting, and did try to develop a rapport with us which I appreciated. This seemed to suffer by the end of the trip, but I do recognize that this was valued at the beginning of the trip. We loved visiting the Hill Tribes, and felt accepted and valued, particularly by the Akha tribe. We enjoyed participating in the activities at this tourism village, and felt that our contribution, by visiting, was valuable to the Akha. Our other stops over the first two-three days were interesting and informative, and we felt lucky to see many sights, areas of Chiang Rai, and people than we would have been able to see on our own.
For this tour, I was most excited about the homestay. Many of the comments on travel websites indicated that the homestay was the best part of the trip, so I was expecting a wonderful exposure to life in northern Thailand. For me, this was the biggest disappointment of the trip. I don't think we are naturally "tour people". For the most part, I think we prefer to explore things ourselves. So this may have coloured our impression of the tour. However, for the tour we trusted the reviews that this would be an authentic experience that would leave us feeling that we had encountered the "real northern Thailand". We stayed with... honestly, I am not sure who we stayed with, as we were never properly introduced to the property owners where we stayed. There was a kind man there, apparently another tour guide with the same agency, who was very kind and tried to talk to and interact with us. Our guide, after having introduced us to only one person at the homestay, decided to leave us to attend Mass. No one else at the homestay introduced themself to us, leaving us eating dinner with a group of several strangers, our driver Goh, and one person who had been introduced to us. Goh and the other tour guide ate, along with us, but several other people at the table only drank and did not speak to us, ask about us, or seem interested in us whatsoever. It was an incredibly awkward meal with only us eating and several people unknown to us having separate conversations. It definitely did not fit with the impressions of homestay I gathered from your website. While we did expect life to go on around us while we stayed at the homestay, we did expect the homestay hosts to express an interest in us and our origins. Honestly, it felt like a backup homestay used in an emergency and to earn money rather than an authentic experience.
My partner and I were left wondering if we had done something to offend our guide or host, that led them to feel uncomfortable with us. At home, if someone is a guest in your home, you introduce yourself and make an effort to make them feel welcome. We did not feel welcomed or special in any way at the homestay (with the exception of the kindness showed to us by the other tour guide). I really do not want to sound like I am whining. I just want to express that this homestay differed considerably from what I expected, and I want to provide this info for future travellers. We did research Thai culture and life and are not naturally offensive people in any way (we are Canadian after all!) but we felt deeply uncomfortable at the homestay.
The accommodations for the whole trip (including homestay) were perfectly fine and consistent with what we expected. In the morning after the homestay, our guide told us how much to pay the hosts. I struggled with this as he indicated we should tip and based on our experience I did not feel a tip was warranted. However, because the other guide was kind and pleasant, we felt obligated to tip. This left me feeling, for the rest of the day, like a cash cow, a walking wallet, rather than a person. We had brought gifts from Canada for the homestay host, but did not feel very clear on who our homestay host had been. We left the gifts but felt uncomfortable about this. The presumable homestay host, the elder lady who was there, is who we ended up leaving our gifts for, though it was never clear whether this was our host.
On day three, because of the uncomfortable homestay experience, I was not able to enjoy our activities. Sak tried to engage us in planting a field, and threshing rice (to his credit) but my overall discomfort and feeling like a farang and walking wallet prevented us from enjoying this experience. These were more of the activites I expected to enjoy but did not find much satisfaction in. To Sak's credit, he recognized that I was feeling uncomfortable, and tried to ask why, and also altered our itinerary to allow me more time in Doi Ankang to relax (which did help) when we arrived. But by this point, I was feeling so uncomfortable, these actions did me minimal good.
On the next and final day, we decided we just wanted to return to Chiang Mai. I didn't feel comfortable with the elephant park offering. I have heard the elephant nature park is more humane. While my husband wanted to visit the Tiger Kingdom we were not feeling entirely comfortable with the ethical impacts of this visit either. Sak indicated he wasn't comfortable with the Tiger Kingdom, but didn't offer an alternative. Our decision to stop there felt judged.
Finally, on day four we were dropped off at our hotel. Sak offered to return the following day and take us to our flight to Krabi. We appreciated this very much and accepted his hospitality, which saw us joining him and his wife on our trip to the airport the following day.
Overall, the tour was okay. The hill tribes we visited were amazing. The history of the region is interesting and the views and natural beauty of Northern Thailand were incredible. Doi Angkhang was lovely! Unfortunately, based on our expectations the tour fell short of what we thought.The homestay was a disappointment and while we did appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the Northern Thailand hill tribes and the experience was positive overall, we likely would not recommend this tour to others. The value for money (20,500 baht plus exclusions (petrol,accomm,food,entrance fees,personal expenses,tips) payable in cash along the way) and homestay experience were just too much for us to overcome.
I did send this feedback to the company in Feb 2016 and received the following reply: "Thank you for your email. I appreciate you taking the time to send your feedback. I will write a more detailed reply in due course." ... however I never received a more detailed reply.