About Us > Nitty Gritty (FAQs)

NITTY GRITTY (FAQs)

Price Policies

The prices quoted for any of the tours are subject to change without notice. For our China tours, the price quoted in RMB is what stands; prices quoted in US$ or € in brackets are just for ease of information only. For tours outside China, it’s the price in US$ that’s the true price, and the price quoted in € or other currencies is for information only.  

Insurance Coverage

In many of our tours, we automatically pay insurance to cover our clients. Yet in most cases it’s limited national insurance that covers accidents in the country of operation, but excludes frills such as medical repatriation. Additionally, the liability or cover only extends for the time that you’re directly in our care, often excluding incidents in third-party properties, such as theft from hotels. For these reasons, it’s a requirement in our tours that you purchase your own international insurance that covers all activities that take place during the tour, such as trekking and snorkelling (which are defined as hazardous activities by some insurers). 

Health Precautions

Although the potential of picking up infectious diseases is limited in the areas where we travel, the level of cautiousness that you exercise is a matter of personal choice. For example, rabies is present in some rural areas in China – but we have never inoculated ourselves against rabies as we don’t consider it a significant risk. Likewise, Japanese encephalitis and malaria occurs in some areas of tropical Asia where we travel, but once again we have never vaccinated ourselves against Japanese encephalitis and we have never taken prophylactics for malaria because the risk of picking these diseases is very low. However, you might think otherwise; these are matters of personal choice. We do suggest that you visit your hospital to enquire about latest travel-health advice and vaccinations you might opt to have before your trip. Please note that travel-health advice is in a regular state of flux and we cannot dispense immutable advice here. It’s up to you to be informed of the risks prior to travel and decide on a course of action; do bear in mind that you should get advice at least one month prior to departure to ensure you have enough time for some staggered inoculations that you might decide to take. 

Hardiness & Fitness

Most of our tours include outdoor activities, mostly trekking or hiking, as well as lighter activities such as snorkelling and swimming. Of all of these, trekking – especially trekking in mountains – has the potential of being an arduous undertaking that requires fitness. Yet this is not the case in our tours: we design our tours to make them accessible to virtually everyone, and this means that the treks in our tours do not require participants to have prior trekking experience or be particularly fitness. Our treks can be accomplished by anyone who is average or normal in terms of fitness and weight (people who lead almost-complete sedate lives are able to do our treks). We ensure that none of our treks entail walking for longer than 6 hours in any day, and that there are rest-days between different sets of treks. Also, we step up the level of hardiness gradually as we go along: for example, the first hike is likely to be a short day-hike, and then subsequent treks are a bit longer and steeper as the travellers get acclimatised. We have had all ages and sorts of people – ranging from 13 to 62 years old – complete our treks without particular difficulty. (Longer, more taxing multi-day treks are not publicised on this website, but only assigned to private groups that consist of experienced and hardy outdoor fiends.) 

International Flights

If you book one of our tours, we can purchase your flights from the international hub in your home country to the gateway city where the tour starts and finishes. We offer this as a free service if you travel with us, and we can often get you prices that are the same and sometimes slightly cheaper than you can get yourself. If you prefer to get your international flights yourself, we can give you advice on the best possible routes and deals you can find.

Price Inclusions

The price covers all travel essentials. This includes all domestic transport or tour vehicle, food (and drink with food), water and tea and coffee and snacks along the way (snacks such as crackers, local delicacies, fruits, and so on), entry fee to national parks or reserves, entry to temples and any other historical sites. The only things that are excluded are personal expenses such as shopping, drinks in bars or restaurants in the evening after dinner, and other nonessential personal expenses along the way. We suggest you carry some cash on you for these personal expenses, and can give you advice on how much cash is needed.

Packing Guide

Once you book a tour, a packing guide and checklist would be sent to you. This would have detailed information on everything you would need to pack, and bring with you, for the particular tour you would be joining. The list would be tailored to the season of travel. 

Altitude Sickness

Many of our tours take place in mountain regions at heights of 2,000-metres-plus; at some points during some journeys, we rise to heights of about 4,000 metres. At such heights, altitude sickness is unavoidable. Everyone will experience mild altitude sickness, which manifests itself by shortness of breath and dry mouth, symptoms that get better after a few days. A few people may also suffer from stronger ailments akin to motion sickness, such as headache and regurgitation; these are nothing to worry about as the symptoms and discomforts alleviate in a day or two. On rare occasions, however, altitude sickness might cause strong headaches, and in such cases, the sufferer might have to move back to lower elevations. Severe altitude sickness is rare, and there is no need to worry unnecessarily about it as there is no way of knowing in advance whether you’re one of the unlucky few who may be susceptible to strong altitude sickness (if you have already been to high altitudes without suffering any strong reactions, then you’re not one of the people prone to severe altitude sickness.) In any case, our tour leaders are trained to assist you in cases of strong altitude sickness; and in cases of mild altitude sickness, we carry free medication to deal with the symptoms. 

Visas

Tourist visas are readily issued in all places where we work. If you are joining us on a tour, you are free to mention the company in the visa application form – yet this is not needed by the consular offices. On the other hand, if you do experience any glitches, we can issue you an official invitation letter to smoothen the process. We can offer advice for each particular case on request.

In-Trip Cancellations

In the event that we have to cut short a journey due to circumstances beyond our control – such as natural disasters, political or social strife, injury or sickness that might strike the participants, and other unforeseen events of force majeure – the tour leader in conjunction with the company will decide on the course of action. Following consultations with the participants and local authorities, and after carefully considering the interests of safety of the travelling group, the company will make the appropriate decision in its absolute discretion. The company will – if possible and in its absolute discretion – offer to alter the itinerary to continue the travels elsewhere money-for-money. But if this is not possible, or if the travellers themselves willingly decide to go home early, no refund whatsoever can be countenanced.

Shopping

If you like to engage in shopping during the tour, this is your privilege and your choice, and you will find some free time to do this. We don’t encourage mindless shopping for souvenirs, but we do encourage shopping that supports local arts, crafts, or ecotourism initiatives – examples of this includes abstract art made from driftwood, jewellery made from yak’s bone, Tibetan crafts made by a women’s art collective, and so on. On the other hand, we prohibit products that hurt the earth from being brought into our vehicles – examples include products made from endangered animals, medicinal herbs (which are often rare species), products made from coral or seashells (dead shells or coral are a medium for micro-organisms to grow on). Hence, before you shop for something that you’re not sure what it’s made of, please ask your tour leader for advice. 

Detailed Terms & Conditions

Once you book one of our tours, a detailed policy document explaining our policies, terms, and conditions will be sent to you. This will explain everything about our operation – our obligations, our conduct, our legal responsibilities, and our service approach. This document reproduces the terms you read here, as well as the explanations in other pages of this website: the difference is that it is more detailed and clear, and serves as a legal contract between the client and the company. It’s a document that serves to protect you legally should something untoward happen during the tour.  

Detailed Itinerary

To protect the integrity of our itineraries, and prevent other companies from scrimping the long research and hard work we’ve put into creating our tours, as well as prevent bogus clients who use us for free travel research, we do not put up detailed day-by-day itineraries on Pepper Mountains. Neither do we issue detailed itineraries on request during first contact with clients. We are always ready to answer any questions you might have via email or phone in as much detail as you require for clarity, but we will only give you a day-by-day itinerary – which will include details of hotels, driving times, restaurants, and so on – once you have paid a booking fee or an administrative fee in the case of customised trips. 

Copyright

All pictures on this website, as well as all articles and features and travel tales, are © Victor Paul Borg. All other material belongs to Pepper Mountains Travel Design. None of the material in this website, whether pictures or writing, can be copied or reproduced, whether in part or in full, without the prior written permission of a representative of Pepper Mountains Travel Design. Additionally, you are not permitted to create links to any of the pages of Pepper Mountains without prior written permission.