It has been quite long since the tour. I made notes when I got home but they have been lost in the shuffle which brings me to my first suggestion/comment…d
•Surveys: We were told we would be getting a trip survey right after the tour. It never arrived. I booked thru a third party and you knew I was a participant on the tour. I would recommend you send the trip survey to all tour members – whether they booked with you or not. I would also like to know who gets to see the reviews. Now that I see the question about using my data for a public review, I will say that this was written as suggestions for Explore. I would leave a completely different review for public display.
•Guides: The guides were excellent, especially Sanjar and Begaiam. But having said that, Tipping was still too exorbitant. I don’t remember the percentage to drivers and to country guides.
•Tipping #1: You say you pay your people well. I was very surprised the first day when we were asked for $80 US cash for tips to drivers and country guides. I had not factored this into my US cash allowance. Our name was checked off when we paid and we were reminded until it was paid. I expect tipping to be done by pass the envelope when the person is done. Tipping is not an automatic and the premise is to pay for exceptional service – not for doing your job.
•Tipping #2: Similar – pass the envelope! I want to tip anonymously and not by a suggested amount. During our tour we learned what about average monthly salaries. Our daily tour guide was “tipped” well over an upper level monthly salary. This is not a tip – this is a wage. It was way too much!!! This skews the country income and expectations. Remember there are 12 people on the tour – we were paying as if it was a individual tour. The amount – if it is outlined and “required” should be 1/12th of what was asked for.
•Restaurants: The restaurants were too expensive. There was not a spectrum of restaurants. It may have been “local food” but it was not where locals eat. The menus across all 5 countries was essentially the same – very little variety, portions were too big. As a single it was difficult to order as what you got was a plate of meat – way too much. There were seldom “meals” so you had to order several dishes to get a variety – vegetables were almost non-existent. I went to a cooking class (on my own) and when I mentioned to locals what we were making many said – that’s our national dish, that is my favourite, we love this dish – but I never saw it on a menu! One or 2 tourist restaurants per country are okay but let’s eat with the locals – more variety, better dishes, less expensive. It seems like the tourist restaurants want to impress, or feed us what they think we expect, or maybe just want to present their most valued (rare and expensive – mostly meat) dishes. They are not hitting the mark.
Ordering at restaurants was a tedious nightmare. Aside from the lack of description or English (not that I expect it but these were tourist restaurants), often many dishes were not available, the menus were way too long making it even more difficult to order, servers did not know how to take orders and we never had a meal without at least 1 if not 3 or 4 mixups/wrong orders, lots of waiting- taking the orders and delivering the food. Navat restaurants had a diverse menu, good prices and great service.
•Visas: the border crossing in Turkmenistan (6 hours) had several unnecessary delays. They needed to process each person on the tour separately and then make up another document – hand written and then transferred to computer. The format they need, prefer and is much faster is to list all tour participants on one form. Our tour guide was late meeting us and was not managing the entry line. It was our tour participants that finally stopped the flow of locals getting in ahead of us – not our job!
•Money: Small bills were a hindrance - no one wanted them and we could not use them at all at the Turkmenistani border and most money changers would not take them. People in markets didn’t want them either. Carrying around $800 in US ones and fives was a hassle as it was a huge wad and never felt safe.
•Packing: We did not need nearly all the extras you recommended. I have never had a suitcase as full as leaving on this trip.
oNo water bottle needed – especially not the filter bottle. It was terrible, expensive, not used, not useful now in my life – 100% useless. We always had clean water provided for us – a regular water bottle would have been more than enough!
oNo cold weather clothing ever needed – not even close.
oWould have like to be forewarned that almost everything in written in Cryllic. I spent bus time learning the alphabet so I could understand more of what I was seeing, read the menus, navigate on my own on free time.
oWarning that there would be no online communication available in Turkmenistan – I couldn’t even use the game apps I had on my phone.
•Events: I appreciated your tour for the interaction and visits with locals – eagle hunting, yurt building, women’s felt cooperative, horse sports, musician family at the yurt stay, visit to musician house and paper making. The lunch at someone’s home did not feel authentic – not the same as other meals I have had in people’s homes. All those things were in a few days and then nothing more like it. The 7 lakes trip was beyond dangerous and not interesting for the amount of time we spent on it. On our own, some of us found local entertainment in Samarkand, women entertaining at the haram in Khiva, the subway system in Almaty with different cultural art telling the history at each station, and puppet shows in Khiva. Even if these are not included, it would be good for the tour guide to know about them and let us know. More info about local people, customs, traditions, everyday life, crafts and artisans, museums, art galleries – less about buildings, ruins and people of the past. Speaking of famous people, I would have liked to see the Beatles statue on our way into the city on the bus. Too much hiking for me. Not enough time to shop – always out of money – it was difficult to plan and get when needed.
•Trip App: I liked the trip app. Sometimes found it difficult to navigate or get to the info I wanted. It could have had even more info. Some info was incorrect or misleading eg: Day 17: Dinner was not provided. This was awkward as it was our last day and people were short of money as they were not expecting to pay.
•Booking: If you book thru a third party – that is not direct with Explore, it should be made very clear how to communicate, with whom and when as well as all the differences to expect if you book with someone else.
