Vicky & Lynne,

Firstly; thank you for our tour. We thought it was very well organised, that you chose your hotels very well and that, overall, it represented good value for money. The guides, without exception, spoke excellent English and had a wealth of historical and geographical knowledge at their disposal. The choice of destinations for excursions gave us many of the grand sights of China and a sense of the history and achievements of the region. There were times, particularly in museums and the forbidden city, that I would have preferred the option to explore myself at leisure and rejoin the group a little later, though some guides accommodated this request, not all did.

The Great Wall was stunning, though I would very much have liked to visit one of the original sections, either in addition to, or instead of, Badaling. We were fortunate to have some time in Beijing on our own before joining the tour, and I'm very glad we did. It was a great shame that the others on the tour did not get experience the city centre, with it's cosmopolitan High Street, fascinating night market and the lively, and fun, Silk Market. We also enjoyed the Lama Temple and the Confucius temple, which provided a welcome contrast to the other hectic tourist areas! We also felt that, in cities, we spent a lot of time on a bus travelling a very short distance, sometimes taking an hour to do what you could walk in 15 minutes. Other than the architecture and history, we thought the Three Gorges were fantastic and especially the drag boat ride in the minor Gorges.

Water was always available to us and the choice of restaurants was good, especially for the Duck meal. I think it would have been good if we could have ordered some of our own food as, often, a number of the group did not enjoy the more 'adventurous' dishes, meaning the favourites were very thinly spread. As mentioned, the choice of accommodation was excellent. The problem was that when on the cruise, our excursion tour groups were much larger, though this to some extent was true in the first instance, with a group of 18, when we had expected 11. This detracted from some venues as it was hard to hear the guide or made the trip fragmented as the group moved at different speeds.

Overall though, we had a very positive experience and have recommended your company to our friends, and are already considering our next trip! Please pass my thanks on to our guides.

Thanks and Best Regards,

Tom Jenkins