Tibet Travel Reviews - 2010

We are honored to have received travel reviews, feedback and testimonials as to the quality of our service and personnel from our clients from all over the world. Here are just a few of them:

Note: As you know Tibet is one of the most undeveloped areas in China. The facilities for tourists and the service quality level by local suppliers, as well as the natural conditions are not so good as many other places in China. Honestly we did get some bad comments and complaints ocassionally (among so many years in service), which you might read about it on some travel review websites. But among all these years, we have been providing the best service in Tibet travel industry - you can read about it from the comments and reviews by the happy customers in these pages.

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Dear Katherine:

Thank you for your email.

We really enjoyed our 4 day tour of Tibet. You did an excellent job of arranging everything. I do not feel that your work or the tour could have been any better. We were pleased with the various tours, the vehicle transfers, and the hotel.

The guide Tse Tan and driver Tashi were very good. Tse Tan spoke good English and was very knowledgeable of every place we went.

I would definitely recommend your services to any family or friends who were interested in traveling to Tibet.

In closing, we were both very pleased. I cannot think of anything that needs to be improved.

Thanks for your assistance,

Jeff Scherbarth

Customer name(s): Jeffery & Cynthia Scherbarth
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: Jun. 24th to 27th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa and Drak Yerpa

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Dear Daniel,

We are back from Tibet and would like to say thank you for your good job you did very well with the organisation. Everything went well (we changed only one hotel in Gyangtse and the family visit didn't come up).
The guide and the driver were excellent. Again thank you. We will recommend you to our friends.
our stay and the round-travel in this beautiful and amazing region was great.

Have a nice weekend – chun tian laile

Yours sincerely
Angelika Anders-Lauck

Customer name(s): Angelika Anders-Lauck
Nationality: Germany
Itinerary: 7 days Tesdang-Gyantse-Shigaste-Lhasa

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I was going to write you to thank you for your great help and assistance. I had university student graduation when I returned, so was very busy myself these past few days.

The trip was fantastic!!!!! The driver and guide were very helpful and kind. I learned a lot and saw so much that I still think it was a wonderful dream. I truly appreciate your patience and cooperation in getting me the right trip schedule and my son withdrawal at the last minute. I am visiting my son tonight in fact to share my photos and experiences with him. I expect he will be contacting you soon.

When he does please assign the same driver and guide to him, again, they were great.

I have a photo that it all up. Truly, a one in a life time trip. Thank you all.

Gary

Customer name(s): Gary Sanders
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: Jun. 22nd to 28th, 2010
Itinerary: Small group tour to Mt. Everest base camp

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Daniel,

I just wanted to let you know that we just completed a wonderful tour of Tibet and EBC. Everything worked out perfectly. We had a good group to travel with and had fun making new friends. Pashang did an excellent job of sharing the Tibet story as well as making sure all logistics were satisfied and taken care of.

Most of all, we lucked out on weather. The two days at EBC were cloud free with beautiful blue sky and sunlight shining on Everest. At night the sky was so full of bright stars and the Milky Way just "popped out" in the night sky.

Chris Addington

Customer name(s): Chris Addington
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: Jun. 12th to Jun. 18th, 2010
Itinerary: Small group expedition to Mt. Everest Base Camp

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Good morning Daniel,

I just wanted to take a moment to compliment you on the trip to Tibet. It was one of the best experiences I have yet to have. Our guide, Pasang, did a fantastic job educating us about the local culture. He was always professional, courteous, upbeat and a very nice person.; My one recommendation would be to have a bus that was built to handle the rough roads on the path to Everest. Other than that the trip was exceptional. I will always remember my time in Tibet.

Thank you very much,

Matt Chesebrough

Customer name(s): Matt Chesebrough
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: Jun. 12th to Jun. 18th, 2010
Itinerary: Small group expedition to Mt. Everest Base Camp

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Hi, Casper

I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed my trip to Lhasa.

The train went very well and the Mandala Hotel was very comfortable and friendly. Nima, my guide in Lhasa, was a high point of my visit. He is knowledgeable and friendly. He really went out of his way to make my visit interesting and enjoyable. I thought that he was terrific.

Thanks for all your help and advice.

Larry

Customer name(s): Larry Root
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: Jun. 5th to Jun. 8th, 2010
Itinerary: Holy City Tour in Lhasa

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Sharon,

I am good and I hope you are good too.

I am very satisfied with my tour and visit in Tibet. It was a great experience and I do not regret visiting this interesting place.

Since I did not know Access Tibet Tour, I took a chance in doing business with your company and you have been fantastic. Every thing was well organized and you, in particular, took very good care of me, making sure all the paperwork was well prepared.

You regularly communicated with me and this made me very comfortable that you were a professional tour company.

You have done a great job.

The guide was excellent. Her English was almost superior to mine. I was very impressed with her. She, also, made sure I was comfortable in every area of the tour.

I felt secure every minute of the tour. I would recommend her, you and the Tour Company to anyone who wants to go to Tibet

You have all done a great job to make sure this visit to Tibet was an outstanding experience for me.

Thanks again.

Best regards,
Denis

Customer name(s): Denis Belec
Nationality: Canada
Travel Date: May 28th to 30th, 2010
Itinerary: Holy City Tour in Lhasa

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Dear Sirs,

Here are my comments on my wonderful trip to Lhasa:

I dealt everything with Katherine and do not have enough words to thank her for the wonderful job she did! Everything was great and very well organized! Can not think anything on the improvement and all your guys supplied the excellent service and very professional! We will recommend your service to anyone who would like to visit Tibet and you could use all my comments to anywhere you want, and I hope you got the photo I sent. I will be very glad to be your reference and your customer may contact to me by mail. Thanks to Katherine again it was possible for us to make the trip to Tibet!

Customer name(s): Guido & Maria Perdomo
Nationality: Republic of Dominicana
Travel Date: May 23th to 26th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa and Yamdrok Lake

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I was pleased with the speed and details when my consultant Lydia representative replied to my emails.

For the tour arrangement, I was generally pleased with it but I would suggest that for the collection of balance payment, it would be more convenient if it is done in the hotel instead of to the office of the local tour company.

The whole tour is good, particularly Tserim, our tour guide. She is very knowledgeable, friendly and professional.

Suggest include more visits to local villages, meet the Tibetan families and have better understanding of their life style and religion etc.

Kind regards,
Sydney Chang

Customer name(s): Sydney Chang
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: May 20, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa city tour

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Hi Violet,

I am very well, thank you. I enjoyed my trip to Tibet very much! Everything was perfect: organization of the trip, the team and the guide. Lobsang Tenzin is a very good tour guide, it was a pleasure to be there with such an experienced guide. Thank you and Tenzin very much for organizing everything to me and the team of people which was with me! Please see attached couple of photos from me from Tibet.

May be just one suggestion for Access Tibet Travel: to my opinion it is much more interesting and better on the way back from EBC to stay overnight in Gyantse (not in Shigatse). There is actually not so interesting in Shigatse as it may look at first sight. On the way to EBC there is 1 overnight in Shigatse and excursion to the big temple, I think it is quite enough for Shigatse. Gyantse looks more interesting and there are more things to see, including temple (on the photo) and other things. After overnight in Gyantse, the team can visit temple and fort in the morning and after this go to Lhasa as it is according to the program.
Again thank you. Kindest regards and have a great day!

Elena

Elena also shared her Tibet tour experience in a public travel forum:

"I can recommend you to use Access Tibet Tour www.accesstibettour.com . I have been to Tibet in May this year. My tour was organized by Access Tibet company and I can say that it was perfect. My tour was Lhasa- Shigatse-Everest Base camp- Gyantse- Lhasa. Our tour guide was professional and spoke very good English. Group was not big- 9 people including me. The route was interesting, many sightseeings. I also purchased discounted airtickets via this agency which was also very convenient. The price was about 770 USD per person for the tour which is absolutely reasonable for this kind of tour. From my personal experience, I can say it was a great trip and Access Tibet Tour's contribution is very sufficient in this."

Customer name(s): Yelena Bagayeva
Nationality: Kazakhstan
Travel Date: May 18 to May 24, 2010
Itinerary: 7 Day Mt. Everest Base Camp tour

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Dear Bruce,

we had a wonderful trip to Tibet. It was a bit strenuous but that was our fault having only one week for such a big program.

The travel permit came in time. I was not really worried, because all you did was always reliable.

We want to thank you very much for your excellent work!

Here are our feelings, hope it could do some help:

Bruce Guan was always promptly answering all our questions. Our ideas about the places we wanted to visit were completely implemented. He gave us the secure feeling, that he would look after everything and double-check all the details. We were extremely content with his work.

The program contained all the sights we wanted to see, and the tour was well arranged. Our local guide Dharje was extremely reliable and knowledgeable and a very pleasant person to be with. He adapted minor items of the tour (e.g. it is not possible to go from Tsedang via Gyantse to Shigatse in one day and see the monastery Samiye, so we visited Samiye the day before) but the large layout was very satisfying. Our driver was a very safe and cautious driver without being slow. All the hotels were okay, House of Shambala in Lhasa being very special and personal, outstanding from the others.

Some suggestions: we had problems adjusting to the height. Looking back, I would not change our itinerary because everything we saw was worth going to. But I would advise people to have at least three more days to adjust in Lhasa before touring around.

Into the warnings and advice you should include the warning, that the tea you get is not safe, because in that height the water boils at a much lower temperature. We got bowel-problems before we started making our own tea from bottled water on the hotel room.

Anyway, ATT is very reliable service, very well arranged. We are very content with everything. If friends should ask me I would certainly recommend ATT for a journey to Tibet.

Verena Ackemann

Customer name(s): Verena Ackemann
Nationality: Germany
Travel Date: May 18 to May 25, 2010
Itinerary: Tsedang - Gyantse - Shigatse - Namtso - Lhasa

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Dear Katherine,

We had a great time in Tibet and we would like to thank you again for it. We appreciate the friendly, patient, efficient and professional way you organized this tour for us and the fact that everything went smooth and without surprises. Lobsang is a very good and knowledgeable guide and we enjoyed being with him and learning from him about Tibet. He took good care of us! The driver we had was also good and we felt safe with him.
We抣l be happy to share this experience with future tourists to Tibet. I attach the link to the Trip Advisor Forum where I already posted a recommendation for the agency and for you two.
Best regards,
Vera & Eduard Goldfracht

Vera and Eduard shared their Tibet trip experiences with others on a travel forum:

"We had a very good experience with Access Tibet Tours. As I read different opinions about them in the forum and had some doubts by myself in the past, I want to add a recommendation.

We just returned from a trip to Tibet, organized through Access Tibet Tours. We planned it for a long time, cancelled it at the last moment and then planned again changing the itinerary a few times. All along, we had Katherine Liu as advisor. She was very friendly, helpful, professional and efficient. Also we had a lot of information about Tibet we appreciated her advice and felt we have a partner in planning. She checked for us different possibilities till we had the tour we wanted and no question was left unanswered (we had a lot!).

Our guide was Lobsang Nyima. He is Tibetan, speaks very well English, and shared with us his knowledge about the Tibetan culture and religion. We did a 12 days trip with him and he was very pleasant companion, easy going and taking care of all our needs.

We didn't have "surprises", no "similar" hotels. We choose only the hotel in Lhasa by ourselves, all the others were chosen by the agency and they were good or the best available. The same for the restaurants, we ate at the places Lobsang took us and we finished the trip without any stomach problem. After the first day we asked to change the car as it wasn't comfortable and the agency in Lhasa did it without problem. The driver was also very good and we felt safe with him even after long driving hours."

Customer name(s): Vera & Eduard Goldfracht
Nationality: Israel
Travel Date: May 16th -May 28th, 2010
Itinerary: Tsedang - Lhasa - Gyantse - Shigatse - Mt. Everest Base Camp - Namsto Lake

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Here is the information Nicky posted on a public travel forum:

"About Access Tibet Tour

1. The advisor i contacted is professional, attentive, friendly and you can tell she really cares about her job and her clients. She was so patient with our many questions from different sides of the world and was extremely helpful in tailoring our tour to suit our needs. She chose good accommodation for us and in particular in Lhasa where we specifically asked to be near the Barkhor Square.

2. Our tour arrangements were very good. It was great to be able to take your basic itinerary and add what we wanted to it and also get to see as much as we could in the short timeframe we had. We thought our guide, Lobsang was extremely good - very patient and flexible with us. As it was only the two of us on the tour, he was very helpful in suggesting things we might like or letting us know if it wasn't advisable to visit somewhere (eg. Drepung Monastery in Lhasa was undergoing renovations so we went sourvenir shopping instead and toured the Tibetan carpet making facility). Our driver was also very good and very friendly and we both enjoyed our travels with them very much.

3. We are willing to recommend their service to those who wish to come to Tibet - in fact I already have!"

Customer name(s): Nicky Chan/Kelly Lau
Nationality: Malaysia
Travel Date: May 13, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Mt. Everest - Namtso - Nyinchi

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Hi Lydia,

Just letting you know we had a great trip in Tibet and in the rest of China.

Tibet is an amazing place, and everything when well. (except the hotel in Gyantse - The toilet seat was broken and they had taped it up with sticky tape - they eventually changed our room - but then there was no pillow cases on the pillows.) The Tour Guide and driver were great.

Thank you very much for organising this trip for us.

Regards
Ron and Janet Mundy

Customer name(s): Ron and Janet Mundy
Nationality: Australia
Travel Date: May 13, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Gyantse - Shigatse

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For future Tibet travelers, I like to tell you how great our Tibetan travel guide Tsering Lhakyi is. She speaks fantastic English and has a great personality, know the local culture well, particularly in the history & Tibetan religion. She gave us good advice in shopping, food/restaurant & took us to a farmer house for a tour. We took a 5 days tour in May 2010. I highly recommend to ask her as your tour guide.

James Chang Minnesota, USA

Customer name(s): James Chang Minnesota
Nationality: United States
Travel Date: May, 2010
Itinerary: Holy city tour in Lhasa

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Our trip to Tibet was inspiring but not relaxing, as expected.

The trip to Shigatse offered many beautiful panorama's, we did enjoy it, but in our view, there are more possibilities for short stops (for looking around and taking a picture) than we have had.

As I am involved in agricultural projects in China, I thank Tsering for the stops at some agricultural sites, in particular the interviews with greenhouse farmers.

Besides the monasteries in the program, we visited a nunnery with Tsering, which was one of the most relaxing moments in our tour.

Summarizing, we have enjoyed our visit to Tibet and will advise other people to do the same.
You did a wonderful job to organize our trip, in including the permit etc. on such a short notice, so there is no reason for us not to recommend your agency. (Though, I will advice them always to make price comparisons :)

Yours Sincerely
Kamphuis

Customer name(s): Mr. Kamphuis
Nationality: Netherlands
Travel Date: May 11 to May 17, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Gyantse - Shigatse

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Hi, Lydia -

I hope you're well!

I completed a long form with Pasang at the end of the trip, but I will also share some of my feels here with you all:

1. You were excellent in terms of getting back to me on time and helping me with everything - EXCELLENT!
2. The tour was fine - our guide Pasang was absolutely fantastic, the best guide I have ever had and so knowledgeable, warm, friendly, and helpful.
3. I would definitely recommend your service.

Best,
Mary

Customer name(s): Mary Beth Leisen
Nationality: Leisen Mary Beth
Travel Date: May 11st, 2010
Itinerary: 7 days group tour to Mt. Everest

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Hi Lydia,

My buddy Ayush and I had a great time in Tibet - Everest was truly unforgettable. Thank you very much for helping us organize such an excellent tour. Please see my feedback below. My friend Ayush will send in his feedback too.

Our advisor Lydia is absolutely great. Responses were quick, and in enough detail and clarity. The tour arrangements are very nicely done. Friendly, helpful, and not trying to make the tourist try the most expensive deals! That was very nice - to attempt to tell the tourists which type of travel arrangements would make them reduce costs.

One improvement may be to reduce the number of visits to the monasteries. I'm not being disrespectful at all. While we appreciate Tibetan culture, we found that after 2 monasteries, we could not tell the difference or understand the various significances. This is similar to the Hindu temples in India - not much variation to a foreigner if he/ she visits more than 2-3 temples.

Kind regards,
Sushanth Kondi

Customer name(s): Sushanth Kondi
Nationality: India
Travel Date: May 9th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa-Shigatse-Mt. Everest- Lhasa

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Dear Lydia and the team from Access Tibet Tour,

Thank you for your feedback form and we would be very happy to share with you our tour experiences:

Our contactor Lydia is professional, attentive, friendly and you can tell she really cares about her job and her clients. She was so patient with our many questions from different sides of the world and was extremely helpful in tailoring our tour to suit our needs. Lydia chose good accommodation for us and in particular in Lhasa where we specifically asked to be near the Barkhor Square.

Our tour arrangements were very good. It was great to be able to take your basic itinerary and add what we wanted to it and also get to see as much as we could in the short timeframe we had. We thought our guide, Lobsang was extremely good - very patient and flexible with us. As it was only the two of us on the tour, he was very helpful in suggesting things we might like or letting us know if it wasn't advisable to visit somewhere (eg. Drepung Monastery in Lhasa was undergoing renovations so we went sourvenir shopping instead and toured the Tibetan carpet making facility). Our driver was also very good and very friendly and we both enjoyed our travels with them very much. Please pass on our thanks and regards to Lobsang and Berma!

Our general opinion of Access Tibet Tour is very positive and we would definitely use your services again when we next visit Tibet. We are willing to recommend your service to those who wish to come to Tibet - in fact I already have!

Kind regards,

Nicole Paterson and Matt Staniforth

Customer name(s): Nicole Paterson and Matt Staniforth
Nationality: Australia
Travel Date: Apr. 28th to May 4th, 2010
Itinerary: 7 days group tour to Mt. Everest

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Thank you to all the wonderful friends we made along the way on our recent trip to Mount Everest in Tibet in April-May 2010 for making the trip really enjoyable.

A special thank you to our expert guide Don Drop from Access Tibet tours for sharing his vast knowledge of the Tibetan people, landscapes, and religion and of course somehow he also gets the credit for the great weather which allowed us to clearly see Mount Everest!

Also thank you to the Stanley Family for their hospitality while staying at base camp and to Katherine from Access Tibet Tours for always getting back with us during the planning stages and being flexible during our trip.

Please reply to this e-mail so I know you received it ok as my e-mail address sometimes gets blocked and if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Happy Trails to all.

Regards,
Gerald & Belinda Cross

Customer name(s): Cross families
Nationality: USA
Travel Date: April 26th - May 7th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Gyantse - Shigatse - Mt.

Everest Base Camp

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Dear Lydia,

Regina and I made it safely across the Nepalese border.

Thank you again for the great trip you organized for us.

We had a very good time with Lung Dock and Dorje. They taught us a lot and showed us so many interesting places.

Tibet was a great experience for us.

Best regards to all

Maike and Regina

Customer name(s): Maike Sottru
Nationality: Germany
Travel Date: April 26th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Mt. Everest - Kathmandu

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Our operator Lydia's responses to our mails were extremely fast, friendly and helpful. We could not expect it any better!

For the arrangement, in retrospect, maybe some more free time would have been nice. Apart from this, the arrangements were great, and individual changes were included readily.

We are very content with the service ATT provide, except the pickup at Lhasa station was not as perfect as the rest because the tour guide was late. Apart from this: Great trip!!! And, we would like recommend to people asking about going to Tibet, actually, we already did recommend to several people we met along the way later in China.

Regards,
Daniel

Customer name(s): Daniel Sattler
Nationality: Germany
Travel date: April 25th, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Gyantse - Tsedang

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Hi Lydia,

I am on the plane waiting for take off from Lhasa.

You surpassed all expectations. I will contact you next year to plan adventure in China. Kashgar, Mongolia, Lijang or Guilin.

Thank you again.

Rob Pasnau
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Customer name(s): Rob Pasnau
Nationality: USA & Mexico
Travel date: April 23rd, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa City Tour

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This trip went very well & was well organized. Yeshi our driver was excellent as was Tsering our guide. Both were a great help & Tsering was very knowledgeable & obliging. They were also both always punctual.

The content of the trip was really good, with enough variety to make it interesting.

The hotels were marvelous especially the one in Lhasa. You also somehow managed to make sure that the weather was perfect. We enjoyed the train trips, Xi'an & Shanghai.

The drive from Shigatse to Yanpachen was incredibly beautiful & is strongly recommended for further trips. Tibet is a great place to visit, which we will definitely recommend to our traveling friends.

Best wishes,
Forbes

Customer name(s): Forbes James Russelll Stuart
Nationality: Australia
Travel date: Apr. 11th to 22nd, 2010
Itinerary: Lhasa - Gyantse - Shigatse - Namtso - Lhasa

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Hi Ceazer,

We are fine. We had a good time in Tibet and love the place. Maybe next time we will venture deeper into the country.

Thanks to the guide and the excellent driver.

We arrived in Beijing last night.

Thanks again for the quick response and assistance you provide that helps makes the trip memorable.

Take care and best wishes.

Regards,
Rick

Customer name(s): Rick Wong
Nationality: Australia
Travel date: April 4th-7th, 2010
Itinerary: Holy City Tour in Lhasa

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Our adviser Bruce was very good. He answered all my questions and was helpful and courteous when I made alterations to the tour. For the arrangements, there were one or two things that we were not happy with but on the whole we enjoyed our tour.

We would like to recommend the driver in Kunming. He was very helpful and made extra recommendations to our guide of things we may have been interested in seeing.

Aaron, our guide in Dali was excellent. His English was very good and he went out of his way to show and explain things.

Mr. Dai, the driver we had in Dali and Lijiang was the best driver we had. He was very safe and always courteous.

The day on a Tibet farm was a big highlight on our trip. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with an ordinary Tibet family.

Our guide in Lhasa was very thoughtful, caring and helpful. He helped us to enjoy our stay very much.

Our driver in Tibet, Pamba, was excellent. He had very difficult terrain to drive over and he made the drive as comfortable as possible.

Hope this is of some help.

Pauline

Customer name(s): Pauline Families
Nationality: New Zealand
Travel date: Mar. 30th to Apr. 23rd, 2010
Itinerary: Kunming - Dali - Lijiang - Chengdu - Lhasa overland to Kathmandu

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