Two couples from USA thanked us for our terrific job to their trip to China including Tibet and the Silk Road in the second half of September, 2008

Charlie,
I'd like to begin by thanking you sincerely for the absolutely terrific job you did for me and the Millers. Your logistics were perfect in every case: hotel selection, time allocated in each destination, site selection, etc. I believe I had already complimented you on your prompt and articulate responses to my inquiries. Please feel free to use me as a reference.
A few observations, for your information:
guides
1. the system whereby one rates the guide and then give him/hrt the rating paper is ridiculous who's going to insult someone to their face?
2. here's my rating of the guides we used, from best to worst:
michael qiao in shanghai, lilly in dunhuang, rose in lanzhou, and dokan in xinjiang were all competent
the rest didn't have english experience enough to understand most of our questions, but were all pleasant to be with
3. neither dokan in urumqi/turpan nor abdul in kashgar knew that we had paid extra not to shop and seemed surprised/disappointed that we didn't shop/buy, etc i'm sure you told their boss but i believe that he failed to pass it along to them
itinerary
kashgar was mostly boring, i would eliminate it for any widely traveled person, there are better, if not larger, markets and there's nothing else to see there worth the time, in my opinion
hotels
good to very good, by the way, the hotel in lhasa did have large beds
Again, you were terrific from start to finish. Thank you soooo much!
Paul Kastin