China West Experience

January 11, 2010 from United States

Jean,

Thanks for all your hard work putting our trip together. We did a lot, and were really tired when we returned home, but were able to really see a lot of southern China is a short amount of time. Li River Cruise and Jade Mountain were the most memorable attraction we visited.

All five guides were excellent, but Jenny (Guilin) and Li (Lijiang) really stood out.  We would enthusiastically recommend China Highlights based entirely on the quality of your guides.  We were interested in culture rather than shopping (which we made clear before the start of the trip), and all guides were informative, told us a lot about daily life, and never pushed shopping or steered us to any areas.

All hotels were fine, but all beds were hard. (We graded the Xishuanbanna hotel hard because of the beds, but then found out they were all hard).  We also did not realize that a standard bed would be two single beds and not a queen.  Meals were all excellent, and we never got sick.

It was nice of Lisa to bring the arc-welding glass so that we could view the annular eclipse in Dali.  All of the guides were right there at the airport to meet us, logistics were perfect. The markets (Steve took us to Jinghong, and Lisa to a country market outside Dali). The flexibility of our guides (Lin worked around a traffic jam to allow us to see sights despite congestion and several guides asked us if there were anything in particular we would like to do extra). All these are surprises for us.

The tour was great in the winter, weather was mild and there were no crowds.  We can’t imagine how noisy, crowded, and touristy Lijiang would be in the summer!

Best Regards,

Ann.

December 20, 2009 from United States

Dear Vanessa,

Maybe the Yulong snow mountain was the most memorable attraction we visited.

Our guide Sally in Dali was outstanding - not only did she know and told us about local Bai and other customs, she really knew a lot about the history of the places we visited, and although she spoke the least English of all the guides, really told us a lot about many small and large issues.She pointed things out to us and clearly was on task with us the whole way while driving. With Sally, Zhou/Michael (whose English is nearly perfect) and Norman I had interesting discussions about their personal situations that taught me a lot about some social and political issues in the current situation in China, how people feel about marriage, religion, educational system, and got answers to questions that other tourists would not ask (like problems and implications of moving a Hu Kou). I appreciated their being so open about personal experiences.

We liked the Eva Inn in Guilin quite a lot, and the Landscape hotel in Dali. Wow was to be welcomed early morning by a Bai guide in native dress at the airport and within less than an hour standing with her in the mud of a Bai village open market among groceries, meat, chickens and listening to her haggle in local dialect to buy us a buckwheat cake.Wow was to be short of breath at 4680 m height (yu long xue shan) overlooking snow and a glazier.

Definitely don't miss biking in Yangshuo - within 5 min you are on a village street where you might bike for considerable time without seeing a single other person (rare in China), see wonderful landscape, and watch some locals and see their houses.Dynamic Yunnan is a wonderful performance of high artistic value - definitely worth it. No matter where you are, try to get up early some mornings and ask your tour guide the way to a local park - no matter where, you can watch people do Tai Chi, or dance-exercise to music - join if you feel like it, they will be curious and welcome you (I did that is Yangshuo and ChengDu).

Margit