a good tour company in china

We came across a Canadian company in Frommer's China called Laurus Travel. After checking out no less than 10 companies we settled on Laurus Travel primarily because it promised small group size and no shopping stops. We have been on many tours with different operators and one thing that really annoyed us was the repeated shopping stops. Laurus Travel did a great job by not stuffing its tour with stops at tourist stores. The company also avoids cheap tourist restaurants. During our 3 week tour we often found ourselves the only nonChinese in the restaurants Laurus took us. And the food was excellent except for one lunch in Kunming. We attribute our satisfaction with the food to the fact that Laurus instructs its guides and local agents to ask xian tour members what they like before ordering the dishes. I can't imagine they could do that if the group was big.


Meals: The meals were really really tough for us. First, my children are very picky. On top of this the food in China is very different from the food we typically in the States. This was probably the toughest part of the trip. They eat rice most of the nights and only picked a few things out of the dishes that were brought to us. The amount of food brought was enormous. We got plates and plates of food that we did not touch. We felt bad because of this. I tried to eat it but. it was very different from what we were used to.

Now. when we got to Shanghai. I found the food incredible. Just about everything we had in Shanghai was great. But on the other hand ? my kids did not try a thing even though I told them it was great. There was no convincing them to try it because of the previous food we had on the trip.

Guides: For the most part we found the guides very accommodating. Obviously they were well trained and educated on the specifics of Guilin tour China. This was nice. We especially thought a lot of our guides in Beijing and Everest.

Cars: The vans we traveled in were very clean and the drivers were all great. They looked out for us and were very patient with us in all our request. Again, they have been schooled well. Actually, we were very much impressed with their driving skill. Driving is very different in China though it appears on the surface the rules are the same. The is a great deal of skill and awareness that is required. They all were great people.

And having the two Land Cruisers in Lasha was a pleasant surprise. The 4wheel ride base camp was incredible !!! I've attached picture for your use. Finally, I would like to thank you for helping put this trip together. I actually waited a little too late but you all were able to pull it all together as needed with out problem. That was pretty impressive in itself.

William C. William C. Weinaug Jr., Mr. Mary Sue Weinaug, Ms. William C. Of course we have been busy getting back into our work here in Sri Lanka so not much time to enjoy holiday memories! Here are our comments:

Meals were in general fine, especially the Beijing Duck and pork dishes and the dumplings in Xian. One criticism was that we do not like to be in the kind of restaurant where you are left on your own in a separate room (some Chinese restaurants are like this)  this is very boring, so the best restaurants were always the ones where we were sitting outside or together with other people.

There were no complaints about any of the guides, though some were better than others. Chen Jiali (in Xian) and Lobsang (in Lhasa) were the best  very outstanding guides, and Rebecca (in Guilin) was also very nice. The best was when they were able to take the initiative to adapt the program slightly to be flexible. This is very important, because like many independent tourists, we wanted to see extra things sometimes, or to take more or less time at different places. For example in Lhasa, there was one extra monastery that we wanted to see which was not on the itinerary, and in Xian we wanted to see some examples of peasant art (also not in the plan). So when Lobsang and Jiali were able to accommodate our wishes, this was very nice. On the other hand we were disappointed with the Badaling Great Wall of China  we would have preferred to see a more interesting part of the Wall (such as Simatai where there are less tourists) but Newman was not able to change the schedule to accommodate this, so we were disappointed.

Briefly, here are the highlights and disappointments of each place:

BEIJING: Forbidden City amazing, also the parks and lakes north of the Forbidden City were very nice. However, the Great Wall at Badaling was much too full of tourists impossible to appreciate. We would have preferred to go to Simatai.

LHASA: wonderful, the highlight of our China trip, I wish we had had more time to spend there. The only problem was the altitude  we were sick for the first 24 hours  you should tell other visitors to bring paracetemol or other pain killer with them when they go, otherwise first night is no sleep!

XIAN: also very fascinating place, much much better than Beijing, we liked it here. National museum, terracotta army, wild goose pagodas, City walls, Juma Mosque all very interesting.

GUILIN: nice place for one night, but YUANSHUO was really amazing, we would have liked to spend a night here and more time instead of having 2 nights in Guilin. Li River tour was very beautiful.

SHANGHAI: a big disappointment, we did not like Shanghai at all. Very little character or history left, all modern buildings and construction, extremely boring. We wish we had not come there and spent more time in the other places instead (Tibet, Xian and Yuanshuo). The Shanghai Acrobats were spectacular, and there were some nice exhibitions at the central Museum and art galleries, but not enough to keep us occupied for three days.

We had 4 drivers in the different locations we were visiting. They were all friendly enough and the car was clean, however the most friendly and helpful of all was the driver in Xian (sorry, can?t remember his name!)

Chen Jiali and Lobsang Tsukphu were both very nice people and excellent guides. They showed real interest in what we wanted to do and in us in general, so we quickly felt we could trust them. It seemed that this was more than just a job for them, they really cared about the places that they were showing us, and also looked after us very carefully. In many ways they were the highlight of our holiday and I would highly recommend them to any other visitors looking for tour guides.

Thank you once again for helping arrange such a wonderful China trip for us.

Adrian and Iveta OuvryMr. Adrian Ouvry Ms. Iveta Ouvry , Amersham, British, , Jul 11, 2007

Itinerary: 15Day Budget China Tours of Beijing  Lhasa  Xian  Guilin  Yangshuo  Guilin  Shanghai