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It was a perfect trip.

Again another great trip - first class service from the team.

Vinnie Gornall's travel arrangements were just perfect.

Great support from great staff. Peace of mind ensured memorable holiday. Thanks to Jonathan

Always get good first class service

Very helpful from start to finish

I’ve always used DialAFlight and have never been disappointed. I highly recommend this company for anyone who’s thinking of booking a vacation.

Couldn’t get any better

Great service again, would wholeheartedly recommend

Professional and helpful

Gino always very helpful and sorts out last minute panics

Very helpful, especially with the cancellations and rebookings due to Covid.

Very helpful all the way through

Ash, who helped me with everything, was an excellent travel agent - our 4 week holiday to Thailand was perfect

All went well thank you.

All worked really well. Special thanks to Calvin Ali who dd a great job!

Everything went very smoothly. Communication excellent at all times. Thanks to Russell Harrison for all his help. Would definitely use DialAFlight again.

Jerry Bushnell and team always go the extra mile and are ever helpful. Always there to reassure and help. BRILLIANT

So good to be able to talk plans through with a real person! Would definitely recommend

Great assistance whilst away travelling

Everything went like clockwork. Many thanks for everything!

Great service. Many thanks

KLM has too many delays - in the Philippines it was a two hour delay and same in Amsterdam on the way back to Scotland

Always a great service from Cody...been using them for over 20 years

Tony was brilliant as always with a “personal touch” you will struggle to get with other tour operators

All went according to plan. No fuss, no problems. Great job.

Excellent service from start to finish. Expert advice with excellent communication and updates.

Tara never fails in doing everything she can to help with a booking. I have used her many times and recommended her to others. She is professional, extremely helpful, knowledgeable and friendly

Brilliant service from DialAFlight

Very helpful when I booked my flight First class service

Colourful Bangkok

A taste for Bangkok

Bangkok is more than just a stopover, as Isabelle King discovers on a culinary tour...

Bangkok is known as a stopover – somewhere to spend a few hedonistic hours before going on to the coast. Well, that may have been true 20 years ago. Now it's a place to linger.

Zoom up Silom road - through the commercial district - towards the shopping centres of Siam Square to see how the city has flourished.

The Skytrain monorail moves silently overhead. Designer labels abound. The shiny Siam Paragon shopping centre has a car park just for supercars.

Then there's Asiatique, a bustling night market of 1,500 shops on the banks of the Chao Phraya River.

Handicrafts and trinkets sit alongside fashion boutiques and gadgets and nothing closes before midnight. If you are laden with goodies, as I am, a fleet of tuk-tuks is waiting outside.

Racing away, we fly over holes in the road. A dramatic swerve and a loud judder tell me we've arrived back at the swanky Mandarin Oriental. They've seen it all here.

From writer Somerset Maugham, bedridden with malaria, to Mick Jagger insisting the windows in the royal suite be blacked out and Billy Idol wrecking his room completely.

Dining on the riverfront at the Mandarin Oriental

Celebs aside, the hotel has a cooking school and I take a class with chef Narain. A kaleidoscope of ingredients is laid out before us. Those we know: ginger, lime leaves; fish sauce, lemongrass. And those we don't, the tiny butterfly pea – a flower from which a brilliant blue dye can be used to colour desserts.

We watch, ask questions and taste. Then attempt Siamese baked desserts (small, dome-shaped pancakes); braised pork; fiery tom yum soup and a salad of grapefruit-like pomelo.

I slice, chop, juice and pummel. Chef Narain chats away. Chillies, it turns out, are a matchmaking tool. 'Mothers looking for a suitable wife for their sons spy on the neighbour's daughters to assess the speed with which they grind the spice,' he laughs. 'The faster the grinding, the better wife she will make.'

Food is a big deal in Bangkok. Take the Skytrain to Thong Lor and Sukhumvit Soi 38, a line of steamy, noisy, kitchens-on-wheels. There can be no better initiation to Thai street food.

Grab a wobbly table and gobble sticky rice with mango, curries, pad Thai, squid and duck. Delicious.

First published in the Daily Mail - June 2016

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