Hi Sam, we just paid our deposit with a personal check issued by a US bank. We are from Texas. I don't know if they accept checks issued by banks outside the US and Canada.

Hi, we also paid for our trip with a check. I would suggest you call and/or email Julius at Laurus and let him give you the information you need.<BR><BR>Web site is: http://laurustravel.com if you need there phone number please let me know.<BR><BR>Susan

Hi we are now in Hong Kong on our own. Hard to believe that I am on top of toria Peak using a free internet access. We just completed the 22 day China Panorama trip with Laurus Travel. They delivered what they promised. We went to the Great <BR>Wall where not to many tourist go therefore there were no aggressive people trying to sell us stuff.The guides we had - no problem understanding their English.I am not to sure why, but people from other tour groups joined our tour guides presentation. They can be identified by the tags they wear. We are so delighted that we went to Yunnan Province as it is so different from the rest of China that we saw. It was rural China, with minority groups that we interacted with. You could identify the minority groups by the clothing they wore. The houses in Dali were uniquely decorated. They were either one or two stories with pagoda style roofas and a pagoda style structure over many of the windows. The houses were painted white with drawing on them. The drawings were either black or white or in color. I could not believe the variety of drawings we saw and that the people who owned the houses were the ones who drew the pictures. I am afraid i could go on and on about our visit to Yunnan Province.<BR>Please excuse all spelling errors, the keyboard has threelanguages on it. <BR>Susan

Interesting reading for a rainy day. Have gotten good info from fellow travelers. What is the best month, can Laurus combine trips to Thailand,Singapore, as well as to China. Thanks.

Hi Mel,<BR><BR>We got back last Saturday night and returned to work on Monday. We are still <BR>getting over jet lag and our journal isn't completed. Just a quick note Laurus trip was great - everything went smoothly and Harry the tour leader listened to things that the group wanted to do, that was not part of the tour (group was in agreement about doing these things) and arranged them. If this was a problem nobody knew it and it added another dimension to the trip. This is something I think can only be accomplished in a small group.<BR><BR>My husband and I would agree with your wife. It is because we went to Yunnan Province we want to go back to China. We saw rural China and a daily life that was focused on farming, going to market etc. and not on going to work in a big city. <BR><BR>Visited other minority cultures and learned more about them. The scenery was <BR>magnificent - no tall skyscrapers, the houses in Dali were completely different than any others we had seen. Because we went to these areas we are planning to return to China with Laurus and members of our tour group plan to also.<BR><BR>Hopefully this helps. If you need more info before we get the journal completed <BR>please let us know.<BR><BR>Susan<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>