How it all began

1972 was a vintage year. Nothing to do with red wine or classic cars. It was the year that Mick and I married. 5th February to be precise.

We first began to think about our Ruby Anniversary roughly three years before the event. We decided that it would be great to do something really special to celebrate. We did not want to wait for our Golden Anniversary as, sadly, both of our Mothers had been widowed before they achieved that event. So we started to save without, at that time, any real idea of exactly what we were saving for.

We must have spent at least a year throwing ideas around. We would each suggest a location and then think about the things that we would do if we went there and try to weigh up the pros and cons of each idea. There were a number of possibilities. We would both love to visit India but the options available were not rocking our boat at that time. I would love to see the pyramids in Egypt but there was and still  is  unrest in the country so, we discounted that option. I would love a cruise holiday and also want to visit Tahiti and Polynesia. I did find a wonderful sounding cruise on a working cargo boat departing Tahiti and visiting the surrounding islands. It sounded heaven but, the price was beyond our means at the time no matter how hard we saved. Maybe one day.

Finally, we decided that we would both really love to visit China. I have always loved anything Oriental. Such a wonderful cultural history, stunning scenery and great food. What more could we ask. We would delay our trip until April rather than February. It can be rather cold in China in February and the Easter period was more convenient for me to take a holiday from the children that I care for.

The next stage was to decide exactly where we wanted to visit in the limited time of our holiday and to choose which company  we would use to assist us whilst in China. We usually travel independently and do our own thing but, we felt that for China we really needed some help and support. We finally decided to use China Odyssey Tours to arrange a private 2 person  tour. Our contact was Andy and we built up an excellent rapport. I told Andy a few things that we definitely wanted to include in our tour such as the Yangtze cruise. Andy sent us a suggested itinerary and we threw ideas back and forth, adding or deleting,  until we arrived at a final itinerary that seemed to fit the bill perfectly.