Cynthia & Emma,

My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Things have been very hectic since our return from China & Tibet.

First of all, I would like to thank you both for a very well planned itinerary. We were able to see all of the major sights for which China and Tibet are known, we learned a tremendous amount about your long and fascinating history and culture (much of which I have captured in extensive notes), and we were able to get at least some feel for how the local people live and think today. The latter was very important to us. It was wonderful to see the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum, the Potala Palace, and the Stone Forest, etc., but having lunch with the monks at the Samye Monastery, watching the locals dance in downtown Zhongdian (Shangri-La), visiting two farmers homes, and talking with the doctor who runs the traditional hospital in Lhasa were equally if not more fascinating. These are the kinds of experiences that help peoples of different backgrounds better understand one another.

Not only was the trip well planned, it was implemented flawlessly. From the moment we were met by our guide and driver in Beijing, everything proceeded like clockwork. Every flight took off on time or nearly so, every guide was there waiting for us at our next destination with a cheeerful smile on his or her face, and every hotel had booked our reservations as outlined in our itinerary. Even when an airline schedule change required that we spend one less night in Lijiang and one more night in Kumming, the adjustment was made without our missing a single activity. Our guides made sure we were properly ticketed and escorted us to the security check-in at every airport, and they made sure we had excellent seats for each of the shows that were included in the tour. We could not have been more pleased at how well things were handled.

Our guides an drivers were all very good. While their English was less than perfect, for the most part, they understood us and we understood them. Every one of them - nine in all during our twenty-four day trip- was very knowledgeable and eager to answer my many questions. They all had cheerful personalities and were more than willing to adjust their plans if we had any special needs. We were particularly fond of La Mu who was our guide for four days in Tibet. (If it were possible for us to have her mailing address, I would very much appreciate that.) Let me also add that our driver in Tibet, Zha Ba, was great, and our driver in Zhongdian and Lijiang, whose name I failed to write down, was an amusing fellow. He even joined a band to entertain us when we stopped at the Stone Drum near the first bend of the Yangtze.

With regard to meals, Ellen and I are generally easy to please. We very much enjoyed the opportunity to taste many of the items which are not that common in our country, such as eel, tree fungus, yak, etc. I'm not sure you will find very many westerners as willing to experiment with different foods as we are. The only thing I can remember that we didn't like, despite Zha Ba's encouragement, was butter tea. Our Peking duck and our lunch at the Auspicious Hotel in Beijing were excellent, the dumpling banquet in Xian was tasty, our lunch at the Stone Forest was very good (our young guide Murhphy seemed thrilled that we enjoyed it), and the buffet at the Holiday Inn in Chongqing was outstanding. Overall, however, I'd say we probably enjoyed our Cantonese food in Xian the most. Our only concern was that we were always given too much to eat. We hate to see good food go to waste.

Now for the hotels. Please understand that Ellen and I have travelled in over sixty countries on all five continents, and we have stayed in accomodations ranging from the finest five star hotels to a chief's hut in the hill country of Thailand. In general, we are quite satisfied with three star facilities, and can make do with less if necessary to experience the character of the country we're visiting. Our only expectation is that the hotels we book are as advertised, and on this trip, we did not feel that was the case. What you consider a five star hotel would not be a five star hotel elsewhere, and what you consider a three star hotel would be considered marginal in other locations. We finally concluded based on a plaque on our Yangtze River cruise boat that the ratings you use are given by the National Tourism Administration of China and may not be the same as those with which we are familiar.

To be more specific, we were disappointed that few if any of the staff in your hotels speak any English (in the Weilong Hotel in Kumming, we were unable to order room service on the phone or even from the desk clerk), the beds in most of the hotels were extremely hard (even in the five star Paradise Hotel in Zhongdian), and most importantly, only the Holiday Inn in Beijing, the Grand New World Hotel in Xian, and the Pacific Luck Hotel in Shanghai had what we consider true air conditioning. The rest had what the hotel staffs described as "natural air," which was nothing more than recirculated air without any refrigerated cooling. As a result, there were many nights when our rooms were stuffy and we were very uncomfortable. Had we known we would not have true air conditioning, we probably would have scheduled our trip for a different time.

I hope you find this useful. You did such an excellent job and we had such a great trip that we felt we owed you as thorough and honest feedback as possible. Feel free to use any portion of this email that you wish for advertising. You can also include our email address.

Again, thank you both very much for your efforts.

Eric & Ellen Vath