Dear Ruby,

We really enjoyed the China tour which gave us a greater understanding and appreciation of China. We were very fortunate in that our group were all friendly and good mannered, although we were of nine different nationalities. The hotels were all excellent, and the staff very helpful. The meals were rather too much for us, and the amount of uneaten food was a concern to me. The breakfasts in the hotels were excellent, but a snack at lunch time and a larger meal in the evening would have been ample. Our guides were on the whole competent, considerate and friendly, informed us of any interesting details of history, geography, etc. of the areas we visited, and could answer any questions we had.

Evaluating the guides individually;

In Beijing our guide Hau was very capable and knowledgeable, and we are very happy with his performance.

In Xian our guide Lily was excellent. The meals were made more pleasant by her asking what we wanted to eat before she ordered, and she went out of her way to be helpful and make our stay in Xian enjoyable and comfortable. I highly recommend Lily.

In Chongqing we only spent a short time with our guide Jerry so it is difficult to fairly evaluate his capability. He did inform us as well as possible about the city, and we had a very nice meal there. It was nice to have a buffet style meal and more of those would be an improvement. The restaurant was superb. It would have been nice to spend more time in Chongqing.

In Fengdu our guide could not speak enough English for us to understand and I wandered off and joined another group. He was not a Travel China Guide guide so out of your control.

Badong and the Shennong Stream was a particularly enjoyable day, made exceptionally so by our guide Ruby on the small junk. She was delightful.

Sandouping. The tour of the Three Gorges Dam was very interesting and enjoyable, but the rest of the day was rather disappointing. There seemed to be a lot of confusion in the hotel car park where we were waiting a long time to get on the bus which eventually took us to the airport. On the way to the airport our guide told us we had several hours to spare before our flight and asked what we wanted to do. Most of us wanted to go down town and see Sandouping but when our guide asked the driver he said it would cost 100 yuan to park the bus, so we were taken to a silk shop instead.

As a result of our frustrating day we arrived in Shanghai tired, irritable and unco-operative, and as a result our guide Ting Ting was unfairly given a hard time. Ting Ting was excellent, and went out of her way to make our stay in Shanghai comfortable and enjoyable. I highly recommend Ting Ting.

Our extension of the tour to Gullin and Yangshou was excellent, well worth the extra cost. Our guide Jing Xin was wonderful, so attentive and concerned for our comfort and enjoyment the whole time. A truly five star guide.

Hope this is helpful.
Regards Tony Simmonds