Mrs Jones travelled with Bales World wide on a trip to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Here they write to Steve Lidgey (Orient specialist) about their holiday which he helped them to co-ordinate…

 Dear Steve

You may well be away travelling the world but just thought you would like to know that we had a really wonderful trip with everything going according to plan and perfect weather throughout.  The internal flight arrangements went well and the only negative was the earlier than originally planned departure from Siem Reap on our way to Koh Samui.  However the connections were smooth and we were met and transferred everywhere without any problems at all.  Having said this we did have to reclaim our checked in baggage both outbound and on the return when transferring to/from Bangkok Airways as we were told there was no link up with BA.  Perhaps this is a new arrangement but in the event there was time to do this and possibly thanks to Malcolm’s BA silver card we were upgraded to Club World in Bangkok before boarding the aircraft.  

 All the hotels were excellent and even though the Grand was a change of style from Maison S we enjoyed our stay there enabling us to do some postcard writing in the peace and quiet.  Our guides throughout were very knowledgeable and we particularly appreciated the sightseeing timetable for the Temples enabling an extended break in the middle of the day for a swim and light lunch back at the wonderful Raffles hotel before heading out again.  This made it all seem a holiday and not an endurance test!  I made a few notes on each hotel which I will share with you now for your interest:

 The Chedi:  very stylish, spacious & serene, excellent location & pool, loved the teak wood and artefacts, choice of food in the restaurant somewhat limited but very good breakfast;

 The Anantara:  very atmospheric location, lovely view from balcony, enjoyed the live Thai music but not the modern recorded music during the breaks which wasn’t necessary in our view, very good food;

 Maison S:  good location, spacious balcony, room generally in need of updating, lack of drawer space, un-atmospheric recorded music in restaurant, staff delightful as everywhere in this part of the world;    

 The Grand LP:  spacious surroundings, large but un-shaded pool, very helpful staff, great views of the Mekong, shuttle bus service worked very well on the one evening we used it to get into the town;

 Raffles:  real Raffles style & history, super room with balcony over very impressive pool, enjoyed the Apsara terrace for Khmer dancing and buffet dinner, very good food choice for all meals;

 Baan Taling Ngam:  wonderful setting, very well designed spacious room with enormous balcony, seven beautiful pools, great food at the beachside restaurant, resident band too much in evidence at meal times – (we can never understand why some hotels believe a meal has to always be accompanied by music!)   

 Finally a special mention about the Luangsay boat and overnight stay which was a really memorable way to discover Laos for the first time.  The organisation of the entire trip was superb and we enjoyed our travelling companions, several of whom we would meet again by chance during our time in LP.  We highly recommend this journey and the views from our room beside the Mekong were fantastic.

 Apologies for the length of our feedback but I hope you find some of it useful and we really appreciated the time and attention to detail you allocated to making this such a really memorable trip.  We would like to return to this part of the world again and will certainly contact you to discuss this in more detail when the time comes. 

 Happy travelling, kind regards, Mrs A. Jones