Ask your assistant, book on Baolau
Connect Baolau to Claude or ChatGPT and ask about travel in Asia the way you would ask a person. Your assistant gets the answer from Baolau instead of from memory, and gives you a link to book.
You can ask things like:
"What trains run from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on 20 December?"
"Compare the train, the bus and the flight from Hanoi to Da Nang next Friday."
"Is a sleeper berth on train 9 still available? Send me the link to book two."
Your assistant can:
List the departures between two towns on a date, with the operator, the train or flight number, the stations, the times, the fare classes and the prices.
Compare trains, buses, ferries and flights on the same route.
Check one departure live with the operator before you decide.
Give you a link that opens baolau.com with that departure and fare already selected.
You enter the passenger details and pay on baolau.com. Your assistant cannot book, hold or pay for a ticket, and you do not need a Baolau account to connect it.
Add Baolau to your assistant
The address of Baolau for assistants is https://www.baolau.com/mcp. No sign-in is needed.
Claude
Open Baolau in Claude's directory, or search for Baolau under Customize > Connectors.
Choose Connect. No sign-in is needed.
Ask Claude about your trip.
ChatGPT
Baolau is not in the ChatGPT app directory yet. Until it is, developers can add it in developer mode: turn on Developer mode under Settings > Security and login, open Plugins, choose +, then Create custom MCP server and Create MCP App, paste the address above and set the authentication to No Auth. To use it, start a message with @Baolau.
Other assistants
Baolau follows the open Model Context Protocol. An assistant that accepts a custom MCP server by its address can use the one above. We have tested Claude and ChatGPT.
Good to know
The prices in a search come from our most recent check of each operator. The live check confirms one departure, and the booking page verifies it again when you open the link.
The live check confirms that a fare is on sale. When you travel with other people, the seats are counted when you open the link.
A booking link is valid for 24 hours. Nothing is booked or held until you complete the payment on baolau.com.
For some routes and dates we have no departures on file yet, mostly for dates several weeks ahead in Japan and China. Your assistant then gives you the baolau.com page for that route, which asks the operator live.
For developers
The server speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST (the Streamable HTTP transport of the Model Context Protocol). It keeps no session and needs no authentication. It has three tools, all read-only:
| Tool | What it does | Arguments |
|---|---|---|
search_routes |
Lists the departures we sell between two towns on a date, with the fares on sale. Reads the schedules we have on file and never contacts an operator. | origin, destination, date; optional passengers, mode (train, bus, ferry or plane), currency |
check_availability |
Asks the operator whether one departure is still on sale and at what price. Slower than a search, and meant for the departure the user has picked. | origin, destination, date, result_id; optional passengers, currency |
get_booking_link |
Returns a link to baolau.com with the departure and the fare selected, valid for 24 hours. Takes a return departure for a round trip. | origin, destination, date, result_id; optional fare, passengers, language, return_date, return_result_id, return_fare |
Assistants reach us from their provider's servers and are served without a limit per address. Any other client gets an hourly allowance, which is enough to build and test with. If you need more than that, contact us.
Privacy
Your assistant decides what it sends us. We read only what is needed to answer: the towns, the date, the number of passengers and the departure or fare you picked. We do not ask for, read or store your name, your contact details or your conversation.
The requests reach us from the assistant provider's servers, not from your device. The link your assistant gives you carries the name of the assistant, so that we know how the booking reached us. From the moment you open that link, our Privacy Policy applies as for any other visit to baolau.com.
Help
Questions about a booking, a payment or a ticket are answered in our Help center, whichever way you reached us.