Lolo12, I just read your reply on yanumptys thread about the Stans. I am interested in visiting this region. If you already have your trip for next year planned could you please let me know which companies you have found for travelling in this region. I am hoping to visit the region in 2011 or 2012. I've been hoping to get to these countries for a while but the visas are complicated, the flight connections aren't great and nor is the tourist infrastructure. Any help you can provide will be appreciated. Thank you.
PS, I'm post this on the Africa and Middle East forum and the Asia forum.
Pagging, Lolo12
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justshootme - sorry I haven't gotten back to you in a while - I haven't looked at this forum.
I am planning to use MIR. They are based in Seattle and thie website is www.mircorp.com
Phone # 800-424-7289
After doing a lot of research, we decided to go with this company. It was recommended and I like the fact that they liimit the # of travelers to 16 at most. The trip we are going on next May is the Journey Through Central Asia - the 5 Stans.
Hope this was of some help to you.
Thank you for your response, Lolo12. I know of MIR and have travelled with them to Russia. I have looked at their product for Central Asia. Overall my experience with MIR was alright, they did make some mistakes and when there were challenged I got unsatisfactory answers from them. The Russian tour guides tell me it was Seattles mistake and guess who their Seattle office blamed? You guessed it, Russia.
The mistake MIR made was that they omitted a few sights that we orginally had on our itinerary. Obviously, we were caught in between. Once our guide in Moscow knew that there was a mistake we discussed the itinerary details with her and fortunately, we did manage to see/do what we wanted to in Russia. When we are paying top $ for a private customized package we don't expect mistakes made on our itinerary. I don't mean to suggest not to use MIR, I am just sharing our experience with what happened in Russia. We choose them for Russia because they had alot of contacts and could make arrangements for some of the less visited attractions we went to, where as other companies could not.
I know of their tour called the Five Stans and I've been interested in this tour for awhile.
The Stans are definitely at the top of my short list.
Have a great trip, Lolo12.
Thanks - we are looking forward to the adventure of going to this part of the world.
MIR still shows tentative dates for next May. They have our deposit and have assured us that this trip is a go, but I would feel a whole lot better if the dates became definite.
I'm sorry to hear that you had some mishaps while in Russia. It's never fun to have mistakes made - hopefully they made it up to you and that you enjoyed your trip.
In the meantime, we leave tomorrow for 3 weeks in Morocco.
One trip at a time!!
I have mixed feelings about travelling with MIR again, mainly because finger pointing was the way they handled the mistakes. There was no mention of compensation, nor did we get an apology, nevertheless, we did NOT let this stop us from enjoying Russia, and we did indeed get to the places we wanted to. I don't want to spoil Central Asia for you, with my complaints about MIR. If MIR is my best option for visiting the region I would seriously consider travelling with them again.
I had enquired about the same tour about 3 years ago, and there was no interest in the tour so MIR wouldn't guarantee they'd operate the tour. Then I started looking for other options and enquired about visas and choose to travel elsewhere instead. I hope you hear from them shortly with definite travel dates. Just a guess but they may need to check flight schedules, to comfirm dates and this can't be done in advance.
I've been on many FIT trips with different companies, often these trips have been flawless. Only twice have there been mistakes, once with MIR and once when I was in Sri Lanka, the company I used there was Red Dot and they did compensate me for their mistake. I will say that Red Dot's staff handled things better.
I agree one trip at a time. Enjoy Morocco; you can start dreaming of Central Asia and other travel destinations when you're back.
I appreciate your help, Lolo12.