Before getting to China is where Ebenezer's best work was done; to make our time with him as fruitful, yet as easygoing, as possible. Lots of emails and chats on Skype took place.
From the time we first met Ebenezer at the wisely chosen Yinfeng Hotel in Dali's Old Town we felt reassured and comfortable that he was the right man for the job. By the end of the trip our view was that people who are new to a region and don't choose a local guide are probably wasting a lot of their time "administering" their travels rather than enjoying their holiday. Ebenezer always had options for us to consider if we were too long somewhere, or felt we never needed to see something that was similar to what we saw earlier. Or, we could see it or do it later if we felt like it: Such was the flexibility and freedom of our time with Ebenezer. That said, we packed a fair deal into the days and stretched these into the evenings on occasions. Maybe there was something on our original schedule that we missed, but we were too busy enjoying ourselves to even think of looking at what we were "supposed" to do. Anyhow, we went to all the key places and they were often better than the glossy advertising that lured us in the first place.
While Ebenezer loves vegetables, he does enjoy eating meat, especially fish, with his guests. We ate too much, I have to admit, and most of it was wonderful. Not everyone will like yak buttermilk tea, but there are some things in life that need to be tried once: Like the freshly caught mountain trout done three ways: we shudder to think what it would have cost at a restaurant in Australia.
While we casually strolled around the many tourist venues, tour groups were invariably rushed through in a matter of minutes, constantly being barraged by information overload from their guide's loudspeakers and seldom getting time to shop. Ebenezer would tell us enough to invite questions, and let us browse the shops in our own time.
Ebenezer's knowledge of accommodation standards and prices ensured that each place we stayed at was hospitable, clean and comfortable. His assistance in choosing them, and then in offering choices of room was invaluable - including his negotiations with owners in Chinese (not something we could do) to get better prices, or breakfast included in the price.
Ebenezer is fluent in English (being Honk Kong born), and is acutely sensitive to his guests needs. Once he had an idea of what foods we liked, we just let him order and it usually turned out better than we expected. The trip turned out better than expected, and without Ebenezer it could have been quite traumatic trying to do what we did in the timeframe we did it.
Perhaps one of the most delightful features of using Ebenezer's guide service is returning home to find an email link to the holiday we had, that we can now follow via GPS, google earth, and photo highlight. Deb and I will never use group tours again in China as the total ease and flexibility of Ebenezer's services has proven the value of the "personal touch".
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