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Trails of the Ancient Kingdom - 15 days (Feb 23-March 9,2019)
Sri Lanka | Feb 23 - Mar 9, 2019

Chyong-Hwa
Chyong-Hwa H.
San Diego, CA | Reviewed on Mar 17, 2019

Tour guide Thasim is mostly a driver. He just did small part of a guide's job, such as set the morning meeting time.
I have to complaint that so many days we had late lunch,almost 80% of our lunch were between 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm. Then we were driven back to hotel after lunch & didn't hear anything from him after that. Kimkim booked many hotels out of convenient locations. Some were so far in & remote. There was no way for us to find a dinner place in walking distance. We didn't want to eat in hot & humid condition after a shower. We didn't want to take Tuk tuk all the time either. There are 4 nights I stay separately with Tams, so I don't even want to go out myself. We all skipped dinner at least for 5 nights. I feel Thasim could have offered some help to arrange our dinners, even dinners are not included in our cost. We all felt that Thasim tried to put all activities together by delaying our lunch, even when we told him we were hungry & the place we passed looked like a good lunch place. He would ignore our request, insisted a reason to do more activities all together. Then he would say Bye to us & won't see us again until next morning.
I'm very disappointed about Colombo's hotel location. We had plenty of time to do some shopping on our last day. But the location of our last night hotel was so far from the town center. Even it was close to the beach, but it's close to the railroad & not that pretty to see. There were no shops or even good restaurants for us to enjoy our last day. As usual, we got no help or recommendations from Thasim. Every time when I contacted you for detail information, such as about what were included in the city tour, he got offended & not happy. He felt that I reported him for not doing his job. But, I just tried to know because it was not listed in detail in your handout. He did miss to let us go inside the Temple of Tooth & just let us walk around it briefly.
With this kind of trip with many remote & jungle stay, I felt the dinner should be included for our convenience, even we have to pay for it. Also, please give us a good map for our itineraries.
Thanks. Chyong

Local specialist: Sandun Jayasundara
Sandun
Sandun Jayasundara
Local specialist in Colombo | Replied on Mar 22, 2019
Hi Chyong, Many thanks for your comments. I am sorry that the trip did not fully meet your expectations. We have tried our best to offer you a good service. Even though Sri Lanka is a small country the travel distances can be long. So when travelling it is always possible to have a late lunch. I have added treks that are in less touristic areas to give you the best experiences. So most of the towns did not have good restaurants but you always had the possibility of buying the dinner from... Read more

Hi Chyong,

Many thanks for your comments. I am sorry that the trip did not fully meet your expectations. We have tried our best to offer you a good service.

Even though Sri Lanka is a small country the travel distances can be long. So when travelling it is always possible to have a late lunch. I have added treks that are in less touristic areas to give you the best experiences. So most of the towns did not have good restaurants but you always had the possibility of buying the dinner from the accommodation itself. (All the accommodation you have stayed offered dinner)

Thasim always had your best interest in his heart and sometimes he planned to include activities so that you get the best experiences without skipping anything.

Like I have mentioned to you, Thasim was always on call so you could have simply called him and could go for dinner. I have personally asked Thasim to do this but according to him, he did not receive any call from you. Since you booked the trip last minute, we could not book the same hotels as Tams for you, but we did our very best to do so.

About the Temple of the Tooth, according to Thasim, Tams and you did not want to go inside so he refunded the entrance fee.

The hotel in Colombo was located 15 min from the city, so you could have easily travelled with Thasim there.

The tour was designed for your travel companions, the Tams, according to their specific requirements, so I am sorry you did not get the most out of it. Yet again I am sorry for the inconveniences, your comments will help immensely to develop our services. If you ever want to come back to Sri Lanka just contact me and I will design the tour just for you to meet your specific requirements. I wish you all the best in your future travels.

Best Regards,
Sandun.

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