Dear Alina,

now that our tour along the Chinese Silk Road is over for approx. 1 month it’s due time to thank you very much for having organized everything comprehensively and perfectly. We have met all guides and drivers as expected at the different locations of our trip and they were all very friendly, helpful and experienced. Any additional wishes we had were fulfilled to our full satisfaction. Thanks again for your excellent choice of this service.

In particular our guide Homer, whom we had for about 5 days from Dunhuang to Xining, and Tolomon, our driver in the Badain Jaran Desert, have delivered outstanding service.

Thanks again and kind regards,

Klaus Koennecke

Hi Alina!  We successfully made it through the tour and returned one week ago.  Fortunately, everything went well. Days were very long from 8 am in the morning til late in the evening in Xinjiang almost daily.  We walked anywhere from 2 to 4 miles per day, with a lot of the walking up stairs at many of the sites during the trip. The weather in Turpan reached 106 on one of the days there.

The group was very compatible and the trip went very well.  Thank you for all that you did to put this together for us.  I appreciate your flexibility and willingness to make changes to accommodate some of our requests.  I didn’t expect that you would be involved when my husband left his partial denture in one of the hotels; thank you for having it sent to Beijing.

Although many of the group were seniors, we were able to endure the rigors of the trip and enjoyed seeing so many historical sites along the China Silk Road.  The progress has been amazing since my last trip there about 25 years ago.  Kashgar at that time was not a city at all.

This trip will be a very memorable one as we look back at the pictures we have taken.  Lots of culture and history to learn here. 

Thanks again for such an outstanding job in arranging this tour for us.  Will send a couple more pictures to you.

With sincere thanks,

Louise Chiu and Group

Sent from my iPad

Hi Alina,

Just a quick note to let you know that my parents and I had a great trip it was excellent. Thanks so much for all your hard work. I will definitely be in touch again soon for future travels.

Leyla

Hi Alina,

I am finally back home after visiting my grandma in San Francisco. Thanks for accommodating my last minute change.
 
Just want to give you some of my feedbacks on the tour for your future reference.
 
Overall, the trip was wonderful. I found most of the tour guides were very professional, I was particularly impressed with the ones in Kashgar and Dunhuang (Abdu and Jackie respectively) – I found their English skill is very proficient and shows tremendous interest and enthusiasm in sharing their knowledge. I really enjoyed their accompanies, please do make a note on their great services and let their local agencies be aware of their great works!
 
There was one incident I wish to share with you, so you and your local agency would be aware of the situation. When I was in Lijiang, the tour guide seems to be not so enogh courtesy or prefessional in some details. None of my business, but just seemed very odd when no other guides did so. I don't mean to make troubles for anyone, as everybody is just trying to make a living. But I feel that you need to know about these incidents.
 
Thanks again, and Happy Holidays!

JOHNSON JIAN PING LAM

Hi Holly, everything was great thank you. Special thanks to Amy who is an excellent guide and a very kind person. Thanks for all. It was a beautiful trip & discovery.

Regards,

Jean De Chambure

Hello Alina, we are still in our tour to Central Asia , but the tour guide Benny in Urumqi and Turpan is the best. Thank You

Sent from my iPhone

Alina,It's good to hear from you again.

On the whole we have a good trip and all members are thankful for the experience.  We visited a lot of interesting places. And extensive use of high speed trains make travelling comfortable and enjoyable.

I would, however, suggest the following improvements:

1) Better hotel in Xining. Quality of service in that hotel was very good, but the bathroom was not so good.

2) Dinner on first night in Dunhuang was bland tastes and poor choices of dishes.

Other than these unpleasant encounters, the trip was a great trip, and many team members said they will highly recommend your agency to friends who are interested in travelling in China.

Best Regards
Kwarn KE


An edited version of "Tenderfoot on the Silk Road" (written by Kwarn KE ) has been published in Downs Highlife Magazine
http://highlifemagazine.net/tenderfoot-on-the-silk-road/

Dear Alina,

I would like to send you my best wishes for 2018.  Me and my daughter and her friends had a marvelous journey, thanks to you.

I can ensure you that we will recomend you and your organisation to all of our friends in United States!

Regards,

Ernest

Dear Holly:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you with the feedback.Anyway these are my comments.

1. Overall the tour and the places we saw was very good and worthwhile.

2. Transporation and Drivers were all very good especially in Kashgar.

3. Guides:-A)Xian -The guide was  Mr Noble was a very very nice person-However his English was not so good and it was hard to understand him sometimes-He has only one year experience as a guide and his knowledge was limited.My recommendation to your company is that since we paid you for a private tour at a premium price customers like me deserve a much more fluent and experienced guide.

B) Duanghong-Female guide I do not remember her name-She was experienced and spoke fairly good English-but I think she is lazy -for example we go on the camel ride and we do not speak chinese
we do not understand what the camel man says as she says she cannot come with us. On the last day she takes us to train station-The Train leaves at 12.00pm -midnight-she wants to leave me and my wife in this small station again at 10.00pm -Again I request her she cannot go as we do not speak Chinese so she stayed.You can judge for yourself on this issue.

C) Turpan-No complaints at all Guide was experienced and spoke good English and took good care of us.I was very pleased with him.

D) Kashgar-Guide was nice and spoke well and took good care -so no complaints here either.

4. FOOD:-In Xian and Duanhong we were very disappointed with the lunches provided-As I mentioned we are taking private tour with your company and paying top price -we should be provided with much better lunch and service at proper restaurants-instead you are taking us to all the restaurants where all the tour buses go and the food is cold and bad and all the time same vegetables and sweet and sour pork-Terrible.

I suggest to your company that in future when you have private tours you should provide food-good food at proper restaurant not tour bus food-believe me all your customers will be very happy.

In Turpan and Kashgar I was very happy with the food because here they took us to private restaurant and we could order what we want-thats the way it should be after all just 2 people how much can we eat really?

5. Hotels-All the hotels were very good-No Complaints at all.

Thank you for your good service-Make some changes you will improve much better.I have already recomended your company to some friends and I think they are interested in the same tour as mine.

Since you are based in Guilin I am also interested in coming there later on this year.

Thank you once again and do keep in touch.

Kind Regards,

Ashok

Good morning Holly .
 
thanks for your email. Yes it is now a week ago we came back from our adventourous trip to the silkraod.
Thanks oyu very much again for organising everything so well.
Everything was well prepared and we really could relay on Mr Aman the tour guide and the driver Mr Ali.
You choose nice hotels we had very good service and enjoyed our stays there.
The only hotel we wouldn´t recommend to book again was the one in Taxkorgan "Kashgar Tianyuan International Hotel". It didn´t seem to finished and therefore not well prepared. It was also a little bit far away from the city center. But nevertheless everything was ok and for one night it was ok...not the best one but ok.
 
Thanks for your support.
Best,
Priska Erni

Hello Holly !
 
Yesterday  12 Sep 2016 we have arrived home after 24 magnificent tour days in the Silk road.
 
The tour was perfectly organized  everything was on time and we had enough time to visit all sites and more.
 
All tour guides were very professional , very helpful and polite please send our thanks to :
 
Urumqi (19-20Aug): Ms Liu Wenhua  
Kashgar(20-23Aug): Mr Aji   
Turpan with Tianchi Lake (23-26Aug): Mr Guo Rui   
Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Zhangye, Xining, Tongren, Xiahe, Lanzhou, Tianshui (27Aug-06Sep): Mr Eagle and Ms Aimi !!!
Xian (06-09Sep): Ms Sunny   
Beijing: Mr Peter   
Datong: Mr Kingstom  
 
All drivers were very professional and driving was  very safe.
 
All Hotels were very good and best available some of them with very good location.
 
All restaurants were first class especially with Mr Eagle
 
In all dinner shows we had the best seats
 
Thank you Holly for all arrangements
 
I am sending you first photo if you wish I can send you more
 
Best Regards
 
Joseph and Dalia Shalom – ISRAEL- SEP 2016

Dear Holly,

Thank you for your mail.  First of all, I would like to congratulate you with the smooth organization of the tour, everything went smoothly according to planning.  I can imagine this is not an easy task to organize from Guilin, considering the distance and complexity of the trip we made.  I also appreciate your flexibility in putting together the program entirely according to our desires.
 
For the different parts of the trip:
- Xian: we had a good balance between the scheduled sights and free time to spend.  The location of the hotel was good, so it was possible to go to the center by ourselves.  One remark, we were transferred to the train station at 6am for a train leaving at 8am.  The station was less than 15 minutes away  from the hotel.  We should have had 45 minutes more to take breakfast (which was served from 6:00am on) rather than having to take a package from the hotel.  I understand you do not want to take any risk of missing the train, but 2 hours seems to be a bit too much…

- Tianshui to Lanzhou: our guide managed very well to reschedule the visits a bit, putting all visits in Labrang and Bingling Si in the same day.  This way we had no negative impact from the traffic accidents we saw on the way, which blocked to road for some time.  Lanzhou is a very difficult city to drive into.  Maybe a hotel in another city would have been better?  We spent a nice morning in Lanzhou visiting the hillside pagoda, but unfortunately the museum was closed so we ended up in the railway station again 2 hours before departure…  In Xiahe, the grasslands were not very interesting (probably due to the season).  Maybe there would have been more interest to visit another monastery or temple in Xiahe or in the neighborhood.

- Jiayuguan – Dunhuang:  nice schedule, the addition of the Yulin grottoes was a very good idea from your part, even if we had to wait for over one hour before they opened (and it was very cold).  After the visit to the Mogao caves, we left to the railway station quite early, again having to wait for over 2 hours in the station before  the train left.  Given the site of the railway, a flight to Turpan could have been a better alternative maybe?

- Turpan-Urumqi: this was the only part where the guide service was disappointing.  The general attitude of the guide was one of obvious disinterest for his guests, as he was spending more time looking at his cellphone than looking at us.   We only started visiting in the afternoon of the first day in Turpan and then had very little time, especially at the Gaochang site.  The attitude of the local staff with the electric carts was quite impolite.  We would strongly have preferred to go around by bicycle to explore this nice site.  We especially enjoyed the marvelous landscape around Bezeklik and the flaming mountains.  Maybe a more extended programme around Turpan would have been better.  The hotel in Urumqi gave the real “end of China” experience on the silk road, as did the Grand bazaar, we really felt like being in central asia.
- Yinchuan: our guide there was really very good, caring and very attentive to his clients.  We really appreciated the rock carvings and Western Xia tombs site, they are really worth while.  The 108 pagodas were nice, but the long trip to Shapotou was not so interesting.  As we had already seen the sand desert scene in Dunhuang, this was not worth the long journey.  Maybe a site closer to Yinchuan (like the Ming great wall) would have been a better suggestion.
 
Overall, it was a very good trip and we really had a comprehensive Silk Road experience.  As it was a great journey, it is clear that some travel efforts are inevitable in such trip.  I will certainly recommend your services to other people and contact you again if I plan another holiday in China.
 
Best regards,
 
Steven

Dear Holly,

Thank you so much for your nice service. The group is happy even delay at Xi An and we are happy with your service.

Hope to give you a quotation again soon. Please give complimentary to Victoria - Guide in XiAn, she is very nice and try to get them a great service.

Again, thank you so much.

Best Regards,

Sonia

Dear Jessica:

We had a very enjoyable holiday in China and saw a lot of very interesting places. It really was a journey of life time in a part of China that not everybody gets the opportunity to see. We travelled by car, bus , overnight train, motorbike, camel and horse ! - so it was a bit of an adventure.  We saw deserts in Gansu and Alpine pastures in Yunan and the grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau. We saw some amazing sights and scenery.  It was all very memorable.

You organized our trip very well - and everything worked like clockwork. The appointed guide was there to meet us at each stop be it an Airport or Railway station. The hotels varied -  some were excellent some not so good like the one at Labrang  (Labulang Civil Aviation Hotel).

The guides were generally very good good - Noor ( Urumqi), Peter (Lanzhou/Xiahe) and Thup Ten (Shangri La) were particularly excellent and outstanding.

Overall it was a great experience and we would recommend others to use your company and we too would use your company again.

What you promised - you delivered and everything worked very smoothly.

Thanks & Best regards,

Philip & Marianne

Dear Jessica,

We returned safely home yesterday. We have really enjoyed this exceptional travel to Silk Road in China, discovering a lot of marvelous monuments, but also the Chinese culture.

This will be an unforgettable travel for us, which has been perfect due to your fundamental assistance and the competence of the guides. Definitely, we will travel again with you in the future to Tibet, Sichuan or other parts of China and Asia. Some colleagues and friends have asked me about your contact, so, may be in the future you have new Spanish tourists!

Once again, many thanks for your help

See you in the near future

Regards

Dr. Angel Borja

Dear Jesse,
I am just about to board my flight back to Paris and wanted to take this opportunity to thank you very much for arranging such and amazing trip. Everything wasperfect. The choice of hotels was especially great, both in terms of comfort as well as location.

Thank you very much for a memorable trip and I will ensure that I will recommend your services to all my family and friends.

Hope to see you in China once again.

Regards

Hi Jossie, I enjoyed my trip very much. Thank you so much for arranging everything. I will use your company in the future for any organized trip I might need! :)
 
The guide Mandy was very friendly and very knowledgeable. She called my hotel the night before to arrange the pick up time the next morning, just like you said she would. She seems to genuinely enjoy showing off her city to travelers. And it was very interesting when she shared some glimpses of her day to day life in Dunhuang as well.
 
The driver was also very friendly and polite.
 
All in all, I must say your tour exceeded all of my expectations.
 
Thank you again!  :)

Much love, Julia Smith

Dear Jessica,

I am fine, how are you? Yes, I am back home already. The trip to Xinjiang was great, thank you very much for helping with everything.

Everything on the tour was great, from the hotels to the meals. The tour guide and driver were really great too. Overall, the trip was really fun and a great

learning and cultural experience and I also liked the fact that the chosen restaurants allowed me to have a taste of Uygur cuisine. I have no complaints at all.

Thank you very much for all your help and time, they were also immensely helpful. I appreciate the fact that you took the time to check in during the tour.

thank you again.

Sharrey Lin

Hello Rowena,
We had a memorable time in your country. The organization of the entire trip was excellent. The guides like Sara, Phoebe, and Feifei are great assets for your company. They did a wonderful job.

A small area to improve. As my wife was/is vegetarian it would have been great when making the booking for the domestic flights you could advise the airline that the passenger requires vegetarian food.

The hotels, breakfast, lunch and dinner were good. The cruise was nice and relaxing. Overall I would rate the experience 9/10.

Kind Regards

Hi, Jennifer!
We're home! We're also exhausted, so I will not write the "real" letter now. I just want you to know that we arrived home safely.

The trip was WONDERFUL! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The hotel in Lhasa was just perfect for us as it was in the Xinjiang section; the upgrade hotel that you arranged for us in Xi'an was Paradise. We feel so fortunate that we connected with you to make arrangements for our trip.

I will write more after some sleep!

Matt Brud

Hi Jess,
I would like to say that our tour was great! It was everything we hoped it would be and so much more. Your planning and tour guides were just the best. I can't thank you enough for everything you did. It was a trip of a lifetime. You can use us for a recommendation or have potential US customers contact us by phone. Hope you enjoyed the blog? If you ever make it to the US, please be sure and come see us. We have 3 spare bedrooms that you are very welcome to use while you are here.

From the 3 Musketeers, Thank You

Tricia Bennett