Amazing service as always - my only go to for long distance flights.
Michelle did exactly as I asked
Always very helpful and informative
Adam was really helpful throughout. Excellent service, thank you. It is so helpful to know that one of the team will always answer the phone and be able to help!
I really like the quick response on the phone and the reminders to get visas and health papers sorted before departure
Fantastic service as always from Tristan. We would never consider booking our holidays with any other tour operator. Price and service can never be beaten from our experience.
Thank you so much Darren and colleagues for your help to make sure everything ran smoothly for our first holiday in 3 1/2 years. Vietnam was incredible. We absolutely will recommend you and will be contacting you in the next few weeks to organise our Thailand flights.
Vinnie has been excellent yet again in booking and organising everything for my trip
Craig consistently helpful and efficient
Many thanks to Nicholas Brew who was so helpful and achieved all that we asked for promptly and informatively
Excellent communication and advice from George Burke. Already planning next year's trip with the DialAFlight team
We had a nice break - hotel was great, flights were on time. Organised own transfer as per DialAFlight suggestion using Transfeero, who were efficient and arrived on time.
Damian very good and efficient as always
Always available for help if needed and kept up to date with flight amendments. So far the best I have dealt with.
Excellent service, many thanks. Will definitely use DialAFlight next January when I do the trip again
Jessie understood the brief perfectly, put us in the best locations, arranged all the transfers on time and in comfort and gave us the greatest price. The paperwork was perfect and had every detail we needed.
Many thanks to Tommy for organising an excellent holiday for us.
I have now flown several times through DialAFlight - absolutely brilliant! I have recommended to other family members who also commented on the brilliant service
Everything you did was well done Ian. The flight delay was unexpected but all went well
Samuel did a great job which helped make our holiday a great one.
Thanks for your service and help.
Eric was brilliant as always! Straightforward and stress free service. 10/10
Stan was brilliant as usual
Reasonably priced, overall happy with the service received and already recommending others who travel to Thailand
For many years we have always booked through DialAFlight, always ask for Elliot and he has always delivered! We will be in touch with our next booking request very soon.
Over the years have used you many times. Already recommending you. Fantastic service.
The whole experience was so thorough that I felt very confident the process would go smoothly.
Have been using Damian now for 25 years and have recommended him to many, many friends over the years as he is excellent
It was really reassuring to be able to talk to you lovely people - I hadn’t travelled in a while and my trip was a big adventure. Personal contact these days is a rare and valued thing
Competitively priced and always available to answer any questions.
You all know Roger Moore, 007? If you are too young to know what he looks like, he looks like me,' said our small, squat, spectacularly un-debonair Thai tour guide, Captain Alex, with a deadpan face.
While not exactly shaken with laughter at his wry quips, everyone was stirred by the stunning scenery at Ko Khao Phing Kan, or James Bond Island, as this place is more famously known. It became a must-see site due to its double-O heaven setting in The Man With The Golden Gun, when Moore's Bond goes in search of Scaramanga, played with relish by Christopher Lee.
This was all heady stuff for a first-time visitor to Thailand, an exotic land that has also inspired on the big screen the sublime (The Beach) and the ridiculous (The Hangover, Part II).
Many writers, from Somerset Maugham to Graham Greene, have fallen for Thailand's bars, silk, curry and hospitality. Its ancient history, temples, islands and beaches, as well as the gentle people of unrivalled grace, have made it endlessly enchanting.
A small bit of detective work led me to deduce that John le Carré found his original inspiration for The Night Manager - his thriller televised this year - in Thailand after staying at The Mandarin Oriental hotel in Bangkok, on the banks of the Chao Phraya river.
I discovered his fascination for the legendary hotelier Kurt Wachtveitl, famed for decades for arranging everything with charm and discretion, just as we saw Tom Hiddleston's character do in the BBC series. More later about le Carré, a drunken night on champagne, and his eternal gratitude to the night manager.
But first back to James Bond Island. This speck in Phang Nga Bay is firmly on the tourist track as boatloads arrive to get their fix of the legendary spy.
Indeed, everyone else on our boat seemed to think they were wannabe secret agents, as the men stripped down to Daniel Craig-style swimming shorts and the women wore Bond-girl bikinis. They also donned their best Bond-villain shades for selfies in front of the limestone outcrops.
Captain Alex's tour included kayaking into sea caves, shopping for silk and a lunch of fresh grilled fish, before driving back to the Banyan Tree Hotel in Phuket, a tranquil base where smiling courtesy is second nature to its staff.
Phuket became a favourite destination of backpackers in the 1960s and 1970s thanks to its sleepy beauty and sensational beaches, and luxury hotel chains soon discovered its appeal.
Many of the villas in the Banyan have a private pool, and you can have spa treatments in your garden overlooking the lagoon. Bicycles make it easy to get to and from the main lobby and its zen-like spa.
The starting point for my trip before heading to Phuket was Bangkok and the splendid Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Leave so much as half an apple in your room and it will be replaced within the hour. As well as supreme service, there is nothing the staff haven't seen, from Billy Idol smashing up his suite to Somerset Maugham fighting off a bout of malaria.
Some simple sleuthing persuaded me that le Carré first came across his inspiration for The Night Manager here. The clues were staring me in the face in the le Carré suite on the tenth floor.
A typed letter from the author is framed on the wall. He thanks the hotel manager for the incredible care and hospitality, having arrived 'tired, dusty and unannounced' after a 'swing through divided Laos' while researching his novel, The Honourable Schoolboy.
He recounts how he met up with a friend in the hotel and drank copious amounts of champagne, which annoyed a journalist from 'a lofty London paper' who was also staying there. 'I fear we may not have seemed as funny to him as we did to one another.' A year later, when The Honourable Schoolboy finally appeared, the same correspondent took time off from his political musing to give it a perfectly dreadful review.
The fact that le Carré bothered to send such a letter to the manager indicates his fascination at how Kurt Wachtveitl looked after him and the dozens of others guests, all seemingly effortlessly.
Incidentally, the room opposite le Carré's is the Barbara Cartland suite, for those who are more inclined to soft romance than spy thriller.
Just outside the hotel, Bangkok shows all its buzz and brashness, with street food, shopping (incredible silver), mai tai cocktails at sunset at bars both grand and grubby.
There has always a sense of being about to enter the land of all possibilities, be it The Beach, Bridge On The River Kwai, or Bond. Just remember not to turn it into The Hangover…
First published in the Mail on Sunday - October 2016 More articles below...
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