Tours in Review

A delightful adventure: that was what I had on the “BORNEO Adventure” from smarTours (501 Fifth Ave., Ste. 1402, New York, NY 10017; phone 800/337-7773 or visit www.smartours.com). My trip, 15 days plus a 3-day Penang extension, took place Jan. 9-26, ’04. (The 2005 price for this tour is $1,899 from Los Angeles plus $299 single supplement and $299 for the Penang extension.)

We flew from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur via Taipei and then took a domestic flight to Kuching, where we were met by the tour director, James Jinyyong of Borneo Adventure (www.borneoadventure. com), the local...

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Varini de Silva of Ceylon Express International (9542 Dumbreck Dr., Huntington Beach, CA 92646; 800/423-9566 or www.ceylonexpress.com) carefully planned my trip so I would see Sri Lanka at the time of the Kandy Perahera, continuing from there on a ’round-the-world trip. She arranged for part of the tour money go to the Foundation for Coexistence, which offers hope to the people of Sri Lanka for a speedy recovery from the devastating tsunami of December 2004.

Words are inadequate to describe this island’s natural beauty and tranquility. Our group of eight traveled in a small van...

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Tom Wolfe may have said, “You can’t go home again,” but regarding a return visit to Greece, we say you can — with OPA Tours Greece (137 Genoa St., Ste. B, Arcadia, CA 91006; 800/872-7155 or www.greecetravel.com/opa). Indeed, if you go once, you’ll want to repeat the pleasures of traveling with OPA’s dynamic duo who goes only to Greece.

Our first experience was in May 1994. The classical tour was perfectly managed by Joyce Helfand, art educator, and guided by Nanda Kontopoulos, archaeologist. Together, they created a memorable travel experience — small group (limit, 20), comfortable...

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Pleasant Surprises are just that: cities one expects to be dismal, dirty or perhaps dangerous but which leave a different impression. Following are several on my list.

• Kolkata, India, still known to the world as Calcutta, is a good example. On my trip in 2001, I thought, “What a filthy mess it will be,” but, lo and behold, it was a very agreeable town. It is, of course, densely populated, but this city has soul. People who live in close proximity tend to get along. There are also wide, open spaces and huge monuments. I found Kolkata an enjoyable city to visit.

• São Paulo,...

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Our 12-day cruise/tour “Holland and Belgium in Springtime,” March 27-April 7, ’04, was one of the best trips we’ve ever taken. Grand Circle Travel (347 Congress St., Boston, MA 02210; phone 800/221-2610 or visit www.gct.com) has many repeat travelers; we now understand why.

M.S. River Harmony was a clean, classy, well-maintained ship carrying 140 passengers in roomy outside cabins. Our meals were excellent on board, and wine was included with dinner. The entire crew went out of their way to make our stay a memorable one.

The three program directors who split us up and guided...

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A trip my husband, John, and I made to Australia was different from most tours as we spent most of our time in the western part of the country. Our one-month trip was planned by AAT Kings (Head Office, Level 4, 476 St. Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3004, Australia; visit www.aatkings.com. . . with a U.S. office at 801 East Katella Ave., 3rd Floor, Anaheim, CA 92805; phone 800/353-4525). We booked the trip on their website.

The tour price of $5,043 each included air from San Francisco plus a Sydney-Darwin flight and four days and three nights on the Indian Pacific train.

We...

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“Heart of Central Europe” from Exodus Travel (based in London; in the U.S., book through Adventure Center, 1311 63rd St., Ste. 200, Emeryville, CA 94608; phone 800/228-8747, e-mail exodus@adventurecenter.com or visit www.exodus.co.uk) featured lots of variety, lots of walking, beautiful scenery, caves and a few city driving tours. We always had clean rooms, centrally located hotels and hot showers.

We stayed in Kraków (two nights) and Zakopane, POLAND; Levoca, SLOVAKIA, and Eger (two nights) and Budapest, HUNGARY. Our guide knew the most about Poland but was very resourceful in...

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I encourage ITN readers to visit Sri Lanka, as tourism is their biggest revenue earner and will go a long way to helping the people recover from the December 2004 tsunami.

A group of 12 of us took a 2-week trip to Sri Lanka in March ’05 arranged by Superlink Tours, Ltd. (Lucky Plaza 70, Kollupitiya Lane, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka; phone 00 94 11 2573767 or visit www.superlinktours.com). We traveled in a 22-seater air-conditioned bus, with our baggage in a van that followed us.

We flew American Airlines to Zürich and then took Air Lanka to Katunayake International Airport, arriving...

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