prio06

Dear Kathie & 520,

Very surprise with this issue. I just spoke via phone with Mr Ann at Global Travel, they said their teams have blocked the rooms for us since the initial planning June 18 as they can block the rooms at all the hotels that do have contract with them with the cut-off date for cancel. As they know how difficult to find the rooms for Burma recently. We did ask about the name of their partner in Burma it was told the Tours Mandalay.

It was nice to spoke to Ann via phone and now clear all things, he gives us the phone of his three different clients went the trip with them and i just called to one at Pennsylvania and other at New Jersey they told too well about their trip.

KATHIE. As your suggestion my husband he absolutely wants to stay for 3nights on Inle Lake. But our room confirm just only 2nights on 4, 5 December.

They told us there is new hotel on Inle Lake called Aureum Palace which they can have room for us for 3nights 4, 5, 6 Dec. Not sure it good as Princess resort.

http://www.aureumpalacehotel.com/index-inle.html

Kathie

The Aureum Palace Hotels are owned by Tay Za. If that is all you can get for three nights, take it. I'm guessing it is full, but do check on the Inle Lake View - a lovely place.

Good luck!

FromDC

The Inle Lake portion of my trip report is coming up...stay in one place, ask them to try Inle Lake View. Kakku is a long drive out of the way from the lake (2+ hours each way) and if you do it, you'll only have 2 days on the lake.

520

I checked our correspondence with Santa Maria, and in early March, The Governor's Residence had rooms on 11/25-26, but not on 11/24, which is when we arrive--and we didn't want to split up our stay. Amazing that they hadn't booked those dates by June 18 when your TA sent you the itinerary. And on March 6, the Inle Princess was booked just about through February '13, so it's quite something that your TA was able to have them hold a block of rooms through mid-June. Sounds like you struck pay dirt--and as of now we're quite happy with the arrangements we have.

520

Looks like you lucked out. Good for you. On March 6, our TA, Santa Maria was told by The Governor's Residence that there were no openings on 11/24 and it was unlikely that there would be, the date of our arrival, but that there was availability on 11/25/26. We didn't want to split up our stay, so we made other reservations. The same happened with the Inle Princess, where SM was told that they were pretty much booked through Feb. '13, and we have made other plans there also.

From everything I've read, I believe we'll all have very interesting and positive experiences and look forward to hearing about yours. We loved Viet Nam and Cambodia when we were there in 2004. The level of tourism has increased so much since then, your experience will probably be quite different.