Dear William and Cecily,

It has been about 2 1/2 months since we returned, and we can finally offer some comments. We will as well as offer additional observations about the tour and our experiences.

The lunches and dinners we had at restaurants were of excellent quality. The best of these was the farewell dinner at the Shanghai Central Hotel, with both a extensive selection and high quality.

In general, we found the quantity of food offered at these meals was far too much! We were always disappointed that so much food was left. As the trip progressed, we told the guides that we would order one or two dishes fewer than we could have ordered.

The dumpling banquet in Xian was excellent, but the quantity of food was overwhelming! There was enough to feed a platoon of PRC soldiers!

Regarding the hotel breakfast buffets, the quality slowly deteriorated as the tour progressed. The Holiday Inn in Beijing had a great buffet. By the end of the trip, we found the buffet at the Bund Riverside was not very good, with a small selection and disorganized staff (but a very good room).

All the guides had English language skills that ranged from good to excellent.

All the drivers were excellent and their cars were clean and in excellent condition.

As it turned out, we had some extra time before leaving Beijing. It was a rainy Saturday morning, and Linda had scheduled another museum for that extra time. When she picked us up at the hotel, we had decided we wanted to go to the Saturday-Sunday antiques market. The always helpful Linda and the driver got us to the market, and it was one of the highlights of our trip. It was apparent that few tourists go there, because the very crowded streets around the market would make it impossible for tour buses to get there. A car or on foot is the only practical way to get to the market. We found a few great, unusual souveniers of our trip.

We had a late arrival in Wuhan, and the schedule had to be changed. Oscar offered to take us to the museum in the little time we had after lunch, but the Provincial Museum and airport are at opposite ends of the city. We would have spent most of the time driving between them. Instead, we choosed to stroll the large park along the river in central Wuhan. It was a delight to spend time with the local residents, as well as see a very interesting collection of life size bronze statues in the park.

Also, Oscar's English would make you think he spent many years living in the U.S. Excellent!

Finally, some other observations and comments.

1. Just before we started the Yangtze River cruise, I developed a head cold with a blocked, runny nose. Of all the common medicines we brought for all the simple problems travelers might encounter, we forgot something for common cold!

Vivian in Guilin, Oscar in Wuhan, and Sunny in Shanghai all took me to a pharmacy to find something that would relieve my cold. In that respect, they were very helpful. We could only find herbal remedies, which I found did not work for me. I was surprised I was not able to find even the most common western medicines that are sold everywhere in the U.S., without prescriptions.

At the Shanghai pharmacy, we did discover that the pharmacies have a huge book that cross references the common chemical name of drugs, in English, with the Mandarin equivalent. We tried an antibiotic for which we could remember the chemical name, and the pharmacy could find the Chinese equivalent. So we might have been able to find a needed cold remedy if we knew the chemical name, and not just the brand name used in the U.S.

That was an interesting discovery. A list of the chemical names of about ten of the most common, non-prescription medicines found in the U.S., might be useful for your guides to have. These are for common illnesses such as I suffered. Then local pharmacies my be able to find the equivalent medicine sold in China. Let me know if you would like such a list.

2. Finally, we found the English language skills of all the guides to be good to excellent. Congratulations to anyone who undertakes learning English as a second language. It is a complicated language with many rules about pronunciation and spelling. But there are so many exceptions to these rules, they are almost useless. We asked most of the guides how they learned English, and I believe the one common thing was that none of them had trained with a native English speaker. So, most of them had certain common problems with the choice of words and pronunciation that can probably only be remedied with a native speaker.

By our last two days in Beijing, our guide (Linda) seemed relaxed and comfortable enough with us, that she did ask what the exact right word or phrase in English would be used to describe certain things. We certainly did not feel she imposed, and were very happy to explain what words a native English speaker would use. With only Linda and the two of us, it was easy for us to discuss this.

By the end of the tour, we thought how nice it would be if there were the time and place we could spend with each of our guides to discuss (over many cups of tea) some of the language problems we noticed, and how native speakers would use the language.

Would we recommend this China tour? Certainly, yes. There were many surprises along the way. We came with certain ideas about China and the people, and were pleasantly surprised that many of them were wrong. We came to see for ourselves. Even in 15 days, it was more than we could see and fully understand. It took us a couple of weeks after we returned home to really appreciate and understand all we had seen. At some future time, we would like to return to China again.

Any parts of this Email may be used on your web site - www.travelchinaguide.com, along with this Email address: tiros1@gmail.com

Kind regards,

Wayne & Lee Winston
Illinois, USA