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I recently returned from a 3 week private tour in China.  On October 21-22 I had the privilege of having Timmy Tao as my tour guide.   Timmy is a delightful young lady who is so animated and expressive it was just wonderful to be with her.  She is very smart having won scholarship awards at her university.  

Yunnan is known as the province with many minority groups and Timmy, being one of the minorities, was well prepared to explain all about the 26 minority groups at the Yunnan Nationalities Village.  It is highly recommended for a half day visit.  She will show you a great place to have lunch afterward.

In the short time that we had together Timmy also showed me Green Lake and explained all its features, Yunnan University campus and Kunming's quiet streets with interesting boutique like shops as well as the bright, exciting downtown area that has many high end shops.  After, Timmy brought me to a landmark restaurant for a delicious dinner.   I must say I had a wonderful time in Kunming, thanks to Timmy and I highly recommend her to be your tour guide.

John N

My name is Frederic, I'm French.

I was in Kunming 3 weeks ago,and i visited many places in the city.

i hired Timmy for many days and she was very helpful for me, she show me many places in  Kunming, many markets,wholesale market, chinese medicine market, tea market.

She is very honest, she is always in good mood,she is smart and very açtive, and she have à great sense of humour.

And i can say that she is really good in bargaining the prices ,when i was shopping in the city, she did the best for me to have the best prices.

She gave me many informations about chinese culture,and she helped me to understand more about  the  beautifull province of Yunnan.

I first traveled to Kunming in 1997 when I adopted my daughter Wu Shan Shan.  She is now a junior in high school and went on a class trip to China in the Summer of 2012, spending a week in Beijing and two weeks in Chengdu.  I arrived in Chengdu just before the school trip headed home, then Shan Shan and I took a 19 hour, 1,100 Km trip to Kunming.

I discovered Timmy on this website a month before the trip, and we emailed and spoke via Skype many times before we met in person.

She spent all eleven days of our time in Kunming with us, and she made the trip a complete success.  She was always gracious, upbeat, humorous, very intelligent, caring and kind.  We felt completely relaxed with her and consider her a lifelong friend.

Timmy's real name (in Pinyin) is Tao Fei Yan.  Her first English teacher tried to give her an Anglicized name of Tiffany, but that did not fit her at all; she is no girly girl.  She has an impish nature and quick sense of humor.  She renamed herself Timmy Tao, which is perfect.

She was helpful in many ways, in addition to just being fun to be with.

For instance, I developed severe laryngitis at the midpoint of the trip and we made a trip to the (number one) hospital in Kunming, where a thousand people were seeking attention.  Timmy sat me down and went off to negotiate the lines.  She was back in three minutes, whisked me in to see a doctor, who proscribed antibiotics which we bought downstairs.  We were in and out in 45 minutes, amazing.

We also went to visit the orphanage, only to find that in order to get a tour we needed to get permission from the district headquarters several miles away.  Once again Timmy was invaluable; she found the right people to talk to, handled the lengthy negotiations and pestered them gently until the permission was obtained.  A side note to fellow adopters; the permission note also required a payment of 1,600 CNY, about $250, and they really want the original adoption certificate. (We did not have it with us but Timmy talked them into accepting the photocopy of the adoption notarization, which I did have).

Timmy was also superb and tenacious about getting the best price for the many antiques I purchased.  We re-visited the same underground antiques emporium three times and she was of great service each time.

In short, I cannot recommend Timmy highly enough.  She was a joy to travel with and really did make the trip a complete success.

Jonathan Freese

[email protected]

Charlotte, Vermont, USA