We arrived home safe and sound and here is my promised feedback.

The overall itinerary: First of all I have to congratulate you on the web site that allowed us to choose this extensive and interesting tour. I downloaded every scrap of information relevant to our itinerary that eventually filled a binder, our personalized guide book. We were not disappointed. China is so big and we managed to see such a variety that most tourists who go to Beijing - Xian - Yangtze - Shanghai dont see. We feel lucky to have had the chance to go to Lijiang, it was one of the highlights of our trip.
And thank you for all your helpful e-mail messages.

Local itineraries: Our local itineraries were changed here and there, I think to our advantage:

* departure from Guilin at 6 pm instead of 11:20 pm avoided the long wait in the evening without a place to rest;
* in Shanghai the Mandarin hotel was in a better location than the original Shanghai Huating.

As you know, we had a problem with late evening departures, with no place to rest in comfort. In similar situations on other tours we had hotel bookings extended by half day. In Datong the guide and driver found us a two-star hotel room. You might be hesitant to offer it to guests who are staying in 4 and 5 star hotels, but we found it clean and comfortable. Sitting room, bedroom, bathroom for 80 yuen, very reasonable. You may have other ways to solve this problem, but we feel that it needs a solution for folks who are beyond the age of backpacking.
I think it would be useful to have options and suggestions for things to do on the rare "time at leisure" occasions. That includes local maps. We would have liked to see more of the cities of Kunming and Chongqing. A possible city tour? In some places the local guides took some initiative that was appreciated: David in Xian took us out in the evening; near Taiyuan the Qiaos Compound was included at our request and additional entrance fee; at Yangshuo a motorcycle rickshaw tour of the country side and a village (exorbitant price of 150 yuen per person); performances in Xian and Guilin, Naxi music in Lijiang.

The guides: All the guides were competent, some had excellent English, some less so, but all more than adequate. We had a chance to meet quite a number of people this way, that certainly added to the enjoyment of the trip. The best ones were good companions as well, not just guides. The outstanding ones were: Li Ru Tien in Datong, Weny in Chengdu, Lili in Lijiang and David in Xian. If it is possible, we would like to have the e-mail address of Ru Tien and Weny, also Graces in Beijing.
We were impressed that we were met everywhere right on schedule, with one exception - I got your message and know you found out why. I am sure that it very rarely happens, so you dont have any emergency procedures. May be one should have the local offices phone number.

On the negative side: occasionally the itinerary was arranged at the guides convenience rather than ours. Going through the program without a stop, but leaving us at the hotel in the early afternoon. Could one have a short rest in between? In some places that was offered and found it very nice.

Transportation: As you know, we had three overnight trains and two during the day. They were all fine. Our guides joked about China Air not being on time, but we experienced only one slight delay.

Hotels: Our hotels were outstanding, mostly well chosen for location and quality. We appreciated the guest house (no star) in Pingyao for its ambiance. Now I know what it is like to stay in a family compound, sleep on a kang on sorgum-stuffed pillow. Have you thought of finding a similar guest house in Lijiang old town? Mixing these kind of accommodations with the American-style ones adds to the experience.

Food: We had many good meals, a number of them chosen by our guides with care. In that respect the girl guides were better than the men, may be a coincidence. We did not like the tourist restaurants catering to the large crowds with bland tastes. The worst of these were at the Stone Forest near Kunming, and the first day in Shanghai. We begged our guides to avoid these places, but sometimes they did not find any alternative. In Sozhou at least our guide took us to the Chinese part of the same restaurant instead of the western buffet.
We enjoyed the company of the guides who ate with us. Sharing food is a great way to make friends and part of the cultural experience. All of the guides had to be invited, which is considerate. Some refused, quoting "regulations". We had a suspicion that they were getting real Chinese food instead of the tourist fare. In their place I would not have touched the tourist food either. But of course they were individuals, we could not force our company on them.
Having a choice of breakfast at the hotels was great. Having only lunch (no dinner mostly) was also a good arrangement, we could not eat another big meal every day. We had snacks instead.

All in all we had a good time. Came home with 748 pictures. While I will be organizing them, I will be taking the journey again.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for all your considerate arrangements. It was nice to see you even briefly in Xian - now we can put a face and a name together. Kind regards to Miss Molly, who must have helped in all this too.

  Dear all at Tibettrip,

Everything was so wonderful! We wished we stayed in China longer, so well have to come back! The guides and drivers are great!

Your organization is also excellent, efficient and patient, if we return back to have tours, we definitely would choose your tour again!

  This is to tell you how very pleased we were with the services provided by your group. There were no problems, the service was extremely efficient, and it made our holiday most enjoyable.

In particular we would like to commend the two guides and drivers who were with us in Xian and Lhasa. In Xian the guide was David (Liu Wei) and the driver Mr. Sun. In Lhasa the guide was Mr. Thalou and the driver was Mr. Laqung. I cannot express to you our pleasure with these staff. They were knowledgeable, most helpful, friendly and pleasant. The drivers were experienced and careful. We would really appreciate it if you could make specific mention of this in their personnel records.

One suggestion that we made on the Lhasa trip was that you should include a trip to the Tibet Museum on all of your itineraries. This is a superb museum and is well worth the visit because it is well laid out and has an English audio system that helps foreign tourists. We visited it quite by chance because the visit regarding traditional tibetan medicine had to be cancelled because the university was closed. We are so pleased that we got the chance.

Both of you have also been very responsive, helpful and efficient and for that we thank you. Please feel free to use us as references for other clients if you wish. If we are ever travelling in China we will not hesitate to contact you to help us with our trip.

With best wishes, Anil and Marianne Cabraal

  Thank you so much for arranging everything, it all went as planned and we had a wonderful time. All the guides were very helpful and friendly.

A couple of points for feedback:
Huating Hotel Shanghai very good but a little far outside Shanghai centre.
Holiday Inn Beijing. Service very slow at breakfast. Rooms good and clean.

Tours:
Far too many very expensive government approved shops. While the quality is good the prices are far too high. Negotiating is required to get a reasonable price (about 25% of asking price).

We would have loved to have had a city walking tour around Beijing Shanghai and/or Xian. Going into the local shops and markets with the guides. This they seemed reluctant to do. If time permits I suggest that it would be a popular addition to the itinerary. "

Regal China Cruise was excellent we managed an upgrade to the suites, although I am not allowed to tell anyone how much I paid, it was however a bargain!!

  Dear Nancy,

I am sorry about the late response, but after returning from China it was quite hectic on our side...

We did have a nice trip and we enjoyed it a lot. Thank you very much for all your organization and advices. We never had to wait for a guide, they were all in time. The hotels were also very convenient and clean, we can recommend all of them.

Concerning our itinerary we would suggest to add the following sights: on the way from Chengdu to Emeishan we asked the guide to bring us to Jianjiang to see the 1000 Buddhas. Although we were a bit too late to enter the temple with the 1000 buddhas we enjoyed the scenery and the rocks with some carved buddhas a lot.

The dinosaur museum in Zigong was very interesting (none of the travel guide books list this unique museum) and also the one about the salt dwelling. It would have been nice to stop at a salt dwelling still in use, but unfortunately we only passed by.

We will definitely travel again to China since there are still many interesting parts left for visiting - maybe in 2004. In any case we will then contact you again.

Looking forward to using your agency again.

   Every guide and driver was personable and considerate, making us feel as comfortable as possible. Some of them worked 12 hours or more and still were eager to do more! They and cruise personnel have our highest regards.
When we plan another visit to China, we will certainly contact your group to plan our itinerary. We have recommended your services to several of our friends here in the states.

Thanks again for sharing China with us, we now have a lifetime of memories from our trip.