I wanted to tell you how impressed I was with all your arrangements during my tour of Kurdistan, I cannot think of any way you could have given me a better insight into this fascinating region. Please convey my heartfelt thanks to my wonderful guide and driver. I hope that they enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs. I have appointed myself as your unofficial, unpaid promoter and hope that my friends take my advice and contact you.

The Kurdistan visit exceeded all my expectations - a totally unique experience with many cultural surprises. Balin is a superb guide and a really tireless travel companion too. I would be happy to give you a more comprehensive review in a couple of days once I address the backlog here at work. Where else could on visit the holy city of the Yezidi people, an abandoned monastery and synagogue all in the same day? Also local people were very welcoming in an unscripted way. For instance, we had a nice conversation with a Christian refugee from Mosul who was painting St. George on the side of a residence in Al Qosh - amazing!

We just returned from the 10-2013 trip with Other Iraq Tours (now Explore Mesopotamia) led by Balin. It was a really wonderful experience.  Balin is a great person and a very knowledgeable guide.  He made the trip interesting with stories about the places we visited, the culture, and the history of Kurdistan.  The itinerary of the trip includes a variety of sites that are well worth seeing – there was a mixture of historical, religious and cultural sites, as well as sites from Saddam’s dictatorship.  The biggest surprise we had was the extensive economic and infrastructure development going on in the country.  Finally, the food and hotels were great.  All in all, an unforgettable trip.

Ian and I just wanted you to know personally how much we enjoyed our trip to Iraqi Kurdistan with Steppes.

Apart from the country being so fabulously interesting, what made it for me was the wonderful contribution that both Rebecca and Balin made to the tour. As an Assyriologist myself I really valued Rebecca’s fantastic input and all the work she did on areas of interest some of which were not really within her specialist field. She went out of her way to reveal things in the country which most tourists wouldn’t see - including a visit to the Shanidar Cave with a talk from Tim Reynolds, the palaeo-archaeologist, who had just arrived that day to start work on the cave. She has that amazing quality, so often lacking in guest speakers, of knowing when to give more information and when to lower the tone! I hope you will engage her often as she is truly a worthwhile speaker and very hard-working. Indeed, a lovely person.

Balin too was just terrific; he was kind, helpful and extremelyunderstanding of everyone’s needs and wants. His knowledge of his country’s history and the areas we visited was amazing. He went out of his way to make us all feel at home and never stopped looking after our needs.

I celebrated a birthday while we were away and Rebecca and Balin were extremely thoughtful and kind, decorating the bus with balloons and banners and giving me a lovely party in the evening. They work so well as a team together and one can sense that real appreciation of each other’s contribution to the tour. Brilliant combo!!

The trip was so good, Justin, that I just felt I had to write to you personally and tell you so!

Hope you’re well and enjoying Steppes and the Traveller - a bit different from our time aboard Le Boreal together, but I’m sure immensely pleasurable!

Kindest regards from us both

Liz