Yunnan & Guizhou Expedition Comments

Yunnan tour and our guides

Yesterday we came back from our great holiday in Yunnan province, and I’ll write you a short resymé:

Our guide in Kunming, Cathrine, was excellent and the tour to the Stone Forest was memorable and we drove a comfortable Nissan car.

In Lijiang we met our new guide, Holly, and the driver with the car we had the rest of the tour. The driver was good, but the car was a minibus and not a Volkswagen Santana/Jetta we had been promised.

Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with the weather, much rain and fog, and in Shudu Lake even wet snow! Not much to do about that, but there was no heating in the car, the driver said the heating system was broken and
because of that he had to have the window open to get the front window clear, – it was freezing cold in the car !! So, if you have a word with the travel agent, maybe he could suggest to the driver to clean the outside of the carwindows sometimes too to get a better sight!

Holly was an excellent guide, spoke good English, was knowledgeable and we got along very well.

At lunchtime Tuesday, we got our third guide, Wang Yi. His English was far from as good as Cathrine’s and Holly’s. He was fresh to Zhongdian where he arrived four months ago. He had apparently studied a lot,
he knew all facts like how many steps from the road and down to the Tiger Leap Gorge, the exact height of the tallest mountain near Zhongdian, the number of steps up the the Songzanglin Monastery etc.. He was young, he did his best, but had a limited feeling or understanding of the Tibetan culture and religion. He knew nothing about our airticket from Zhongdian to Kunming, so it was then my husband called you, - and you settled it – Thank you!

Because the road was so bad we did not go to the Bita Lake but to Shudu Lake, and the road was really an experience! We met some other cars, and surprisingly none was stuck in the mud!

To us Songzanglin Monastery was perhaps the highlight of the tour together with the folkdance performances we attended both in Lijiang and Zhongdian. In our hotel in Zongdian the receptionists had a limited knowledge of
English. When we inquired about possible folklore performances in town., another guide,Yang Zhong (He Liang Hua), who was Tibetan, and spoke very good English stepped in and helped us.. She took us to the theater where we spent a good time drinking buttertea and barley wine while we watched the dancers dressed in their national costumes.

All guides gave us an evaluation form which we were supposed to return to him/her immediately. This method prevents the client from giving a frank answer and might well be changed to being returned by mail at a later stage. This would give more constructive comments to the questions raised.

The hotels we stayed in were most satisfying.

In conclusion, for foreigners going to Zhongdian/Shangri-La it might be worth asking them whether they go for Tibetan culture, or for the fascinating landscape. And if culture is the wish, there seems to be several
interesting monasteries or temples in the area which a native Tibetan guide naturally would know more about and feel more involved with.

Thank you again for the arranging of an unforgetable holiday!

Best regards,

Aase and John Dag Hutchison
May 21, 2004

Guizhou Expedition tour

The trip was great, we have discovered a very remote part of China with ancestral customs and we have had the feeling to be in a different time zone.

A big part of that success relied on Sze and Zhou Ge that have an outstanding knowledge of the area and have a great sense of service.

Saying that, some hotels are really filthy and a complain to the local tourist bureau in Rongxiang especially is needed to make this change if possible.

For our luck , we did bring warm sleeping backs and some western food with us to survive... We suggest that you recommend other travelers to do so If they travel at the same period of the year.

The main bad point remains the price of such a trip. The initial costs are high as we have to rent a car, sleep in hotels and so on but if we want to make more trips in the future, you will have to do your best to reduce the costs.

Local agent will also have to make a cost estimation closer to the reality of the trip : how much do they really pay for an hotel night or a lunch? I really think that we have spend much less money than what was forecasted.

We highly recommend that trip and this local company for such a trip. You can use us as a reference for that trip

Best regards

Marc Gigon
Jan 30, 2004