We are now back home and back to work unfortunately.  As I have already told you along the way, we were super happy with the trip you organised for us.  It was all and so much more than we expected and I really cannot find any faults.

 

1.  Communication, 

We had very good communication with you from before the trip, you guided us well, made changes where we asked for, provided us with a lot of hotel options to choose from and was very, very patient with my 101 demands and requests. The itinerary was finalised in a very timely fashion.  You sometimes answered my queries very late in the day.  Please excuse me for this, often I didn’t remember about the 5hr time difference.  During our trip, it was reassuring to have a contact person if anything didn’t go as planned….but in fact I didn’t need to.

 

2.  Hotels

All were very lovely and comfortable.  We had separate rooms in all hotels which was a definite plus with a17yr old.

1.  Ariysom villa is highly recommended……it has beautiful landscaped gardens that feel like an oasis in a crazy city.  Being small, it had a personalised service and an excellent restaurant.  Traffic to reach it was a nightmare on Friday night..

2.  The Riverie Chiang Rai- lovely luxurious big hotel.  Lovely pool and gardens by the river.  Very nice hotel amenities and restaurants were very good value for money.  Has a very nice rooftop bar.

3.  Buri sriping Chiang Mai – Colonial feel with a very nice infinity pool and riverside gardens.  Very nice restaurant too.

4.  Nora beach resort – My top favourite, so glad we didn’t change it.  Despite some minor construction still ongoing at the beach,  the pool villa and the very personalized service made up for this minor inconvenience.  We were compensated for the change in room by being offered half board daily and a massage each.  I cannot stop thinking about this beautiful place.

 

3.  The itinerary and services.

All the service providers were on time, we had some lovely guides, comfortable vans that always provided cool water every day.

The itinerary was very varied and included a bit of all the things we liked.  There was a nice combination of local stuff, adventures, animals, hiking etc and that little bit of luxury that always feels great on a holiday.  You also kept in mind that we had a 17yr old but he actually managed to have great fun.

Actually the amount of things we saw was beyond our expectations.  The rain didn’t affect us and nothing was cancelled. Sometimes we had to start up early but that meant that we had finished our day before the rain started….so it was perfect.

The Elephant park was definitely one of the highlights and it was just as I had requested, an ethical, no touch place.  You should definitely include this park more often in your itineraries.  I think the description we got before did not do it justice.  I had looked up mostly information about the skywalk, but this was only a small part of the tour.  The Elephant nature park itself was incredible, we were taken around to see every family of elephants in the park.  Lunch was fantastic too. The Karen village and Doi Mae Salong were also very interesting.  Given that we are doctors, the opium museum at the golden triangle was very informative too.  The temples we saw were all different.  The white temple in Chiang Rai was my favourite but Ayuttaya was lovely too.

 

We enjoyed the last few days of free time, I think it was a perfect end, since we didn’t have to wake up early or stick to an itinerary but we ended getting a tour to Ang Thong marine park with kayaking on our last day.

 

In conclusion, you did an amazing job Rosie!

We have travelled extensively before and love being independent, but you made all our demands and wishes possible and gave us a fantastic trip, one we won’t easily forget.  Well done.