May 20,2009

Photo offered by our client Mr. Karl Dutton

Dear Dora and Ruby,

We had the most wonderful time in China and we can thank you both for that. Without your help, enthusiasm and advice regarding what we could and could not achieve within our 16 day tour we know that we would not have enjoyed our trip as much as we did.

It is with pleasure that we would like to write a review of our experiences for your website and we are also happy for you to publish our names and email addresses.

Every day we saw something or experienced something new and exhilarating that we would have been happy to travel to China just to experience; the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Warriors, the Great Mosque and Hanyangling Museum in Xian, the Yangtze Cruise, the mountains at Guilin, the pandas in Chengdu, the gardens in Suzhou, eating Beijing Pancakes from a street stall, eating local dishes everywhere we went, riding bikes in Yangshuo, walking to the very top of the Longji Rice Terraces, and the list could go on.

It was such a pleasure meeting you both in Xi'an and we look forward to coming to China again and using your company and guides.

We would like to especially mention all of our guides, Galin: (Beijing night tour), Gloria: Beijing, Tracy: Xian, Li: Guilin & Yangshou, Kevin: Chengdu, Joe: Shanghai, Charity: Suzhou and our two guides who took us to and from the Yangtze cruise ship Robert: Chongqing, Ginger: Yichang. We were impressed with their high level of professionalism and dedication. They were all so friendly and knowledgeable and we were sad to leave them as they actually did feel like friends.

REVIEW

The company Travel China Guide helped make sure we had one of the best holidays ever. Our travel counsellors were well organised and highly professional in all their dealings with us. We were so grateful to have someone who could suggest places to visit and who were willing to tell us that what we wanted to do may have been too ambitious within the available time. Replies to our emails sent to our travel counsellors were returned within hours, no matter what time of the day we sent them. All our inquiries, large or small, were answered quickly and clearly and took all of the worry and pressure out of our planning.

Having personal guides during our trip meant that upon arriving in China we were met at the airport and taken to our hotel. When moving on to our next destination our guide once again took us to the airport or train station and checked us in. Upon arriving at our destination our next guide was there to meet us, therefore making the whole experience worry free. This allowed time for us to concentrate on what we were doing, seeing and experiencing and therefore added to the enjoyment of our holiday. During our stay in each area our local driver and guide would meet us at the hotel and then chauffeur us to our destination. Upon arrival at the many places on our planned itinerary our guide would then escort us through, whilst pointing out the historical, architectural or cultural points of interest.

The second email:

Dear Dora and Ruby,

I have been intending to email you all week as I forgot to make a special mention to thank you both for suggesting that we go to the Panda base in Chengdu.

You may not recall but originally we were going to fly to and from this city and then we had to change to a 4 hour train journey, and then there was a change with the train times and at that point I was thinking maybe we should not visit the base, however you kindly suggested that we would miss out on something special.

Well it really was fantastic, Kevin our guide took us there fairly early and we got to see them eating and the young ones playing. Also the centre was not very busy so we really were able to get quite close. I took lots of photos and Mark took some video, (our friends here in Australia are so impressed).

Finally the train journey from Chengdu to Chongqing was also interesting and we got to speak with a Chinese family sitting next to us and the time went very quickly.

So a big thank you for making all of this work, the whole experience was well worth it.

Mark and I really enjoyed our first visit to China and are hoping to visit again perhaps in the next 18 months so we will be in touch again.

Kind regards Karl and Mark