Hello David,
We came home very happy with our trip. The beautiful landscapes and the kindness of the people all helped make this trip so enjoyable.
Thank you to you and Lili for the organisation. We had the pleasant surprise of meeting her and learned more about Yunnan Roads. Everything went very well, starting with the taxi waiting for us on arrival (on our first trip five years ago, the taxi didn’t turn up, and we had to call to report it and wait for someone to take us to the hotel).
As for the guides, our first guide, “Jack”, was perfect in every way: open, kind and communicative. He looked things up when he couldn’t answer us and was keen to introduce us to the food, the places and so on.
Things also went well with “Alex”, who was kind too, but he was harder to understand and made less effort to explain things (or his explanations were fairly brief). Even so, thanks to his natural rapport with the ethnic minority people we met, he gave us some very pleasant and unexpected moments (I’m thinking of some Bai ladies with whom we had a very joyful time).
As for places and accommodation, one comment on the inn in Jianshui: it’s a charming place, but the room wasn’t suitable for three people, unless the third is a child of 10 at most. There was barely enough room for Elisa’s bed, a camp bed, and even though she’s small and light, it was still uncomfortable for her. All the other accommodation was very good and very varied. Thank you for suggesting we stay in Xizhou rather than Dali; it was perfect. We had friendly exchanges in several places, especially in Shangri-La with Rose and at the Jade Snow Inn, using my basic Chinese.
As for the places themselves, Shangri-La is a bit too touristy and “postcard-like” (already on the way there, we felt that road and rail infrastructure had spoiled the natural landscape), but the evenings were lively and fun. If we did it again, perhaps two nights would have been enough.
To conclude, this was a magnificent trip, organised exactly as we wanted, and I think it will leave us with very good memories for a long time. We’ll strongly recommend it to our friends interested in China!
And thank you, David, for your professionalism, responsiveness and availability! And who knows, perhaps we’ll have the chance to make a third trip to China!
Kind regards,
Nicole