8 Days /7 Nights Kunming/Dali/Lijiang/Shangri-la

Arrival at Kunming airport, meet your guide at airport and transfer to hotel.The capital of Yunnan Province, Kunming is one of China’s noted historical and cultural cities. The city is located in central Yunnan at the elevation of 1894 meters above sea level and is praised as the city of eternal spring. Rest day is at leisure.

Accommodation: Kunming Jinjiang A building Hotel

Start your tour on 8:00am, drive along the new express way to Stone Forest. Stone Forest is 75 kilometers from Kunming and is accessible by a bus ride of 70 minutes. The Stone forest belongs to the typical Karst geomorphology, it consists of innumerable bizarre-shaped ancient limestone cliffs and peaks created by wind and water erosion some 200 million years ago, and this area is praised as the “First Wonder Under Heaven”.Drive back to Kunming then visit the Green Lake Park in the afternoon, Green Lake Park is the biggest park in the city proper of Kunming. Attractions in the neighborhood of Green Lake Park include the former Yunnan Army Academy, believed to be the biggest quadrangle building of China, and you will see people in Kunming enjoying their leisure life in the afternoon. If weather permit, you could learn to write Chinese Calligraphy using water and over-size brush writing on the ground in the green lake park( 14:00-16:00pm). If it rains, we will adjust to visit Yunnan Army Militery School (Jiangwutang) Then drive to Kunming Train Station on 16:00pm and take a late afternoon high-speed/Bullet train to Dali. Meet and pick up by the local guide and driver, transfer to your hotel.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: Landscape Hotel

Start your tour on 8:30am, take a cable car up to Cangshan Mountain, trekking on Yudai Road for two hours, then have a vegaterain lunch in Jizhaoan Monestery. It is very famous for its gardening and vegeterain food.Then transfer to Zhoucheng village and learn to make the local famous Tie-dye cloth.Then drive back to visit old town of Dali, weathered gray granite stands at 2,100 meters on a long, narrow rice plain between the Cangshan Mountains and the Erhai Lake, a natural configuration that seems specially designed for a good, bountiful life. Format of the old town is like a chessboard with four gates guarding in the directions of east, south, west and north, a design that was adopted by most towns in ancient China.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: Landscape Hotel

Start your tour on 8:30 am, overland drive of 180 kilometers, or 2.5 hours along the new highway to Lijiang, on the way visit the Bai village Xizhou and Xizhou morning Market. Then take a horse-cart in Xizhou old Town(half hour for taking photos).Xizhou village has a more mixed population and cosmopolitan background. It grew and flourished in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) along with the fortunes of Dali’s renowned tea merchants that traded to Tibet. Family Yan’s courtyard is a good example of traditional Bai houses. And each morning, villagers in Bai dresses gather in a small market to buy and sell their produce and daily wares. Enjoy the Bai People’s three tea for songs and dances.After lunch, continue to heading to Lijiang. Upon arrival, check in the hotel. Then visit Black Dragon Pond with Dongba Museum(closed on Monday in the first week and Monday in the third week of each month).A gathering place of rugged mountain people with the Naxi forming the majority, Lijiang is a small mountain town of stone and tile, laced with swift canals, which was enlisted as an UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in 1999.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: Doof Resort Hotel in Lijiang

Buffet breakfast at hotel.Start your tour on 8:30 am. Today, you will visit Lashihai Lake then visit a local Naxi family and learn to cook some dishes and enjoy a home-made lunch in the family.Then visit the Yuhu Village, a simple village of Naxi minority with the former residence of Dr. Joseph Rock. (sometimes it will colse).Dr. Rock an Austro-American botanist and explorer who lived here off and on from 1922-1949, is best remembered for the introduction of innumerable plant species to the West and his rigorous works on Naxi ethnology. Then drive back to visit Si Fang Jie (Square Street) of Old town of Lijiang is a big area with its center, or in the form of an official ink stone, hence its name Dayan (ink stone) Town. It enjoys a long history of over 800 years and unlike most of the old towns in China, there is no city walls due to a superstitious belief of the local ruler whose family name is Mu (tree), when encircled by walls, would be Kun (besieged). Wooden structures, mountains, small rivers and lanes integrate harmoniously in this mountain town.Then visit Zhongyi Local market of Lijiang.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: Doof Resort Hotel in Lijiang

Buffet breakfast at hotel.We drive to Zhongdian, also named Shangri-La with stops and visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge on the way. Go hiking in the Tiger Leaping Gorge for two hours,from Halfway guesthouse to Tina’s guesthouse.Clients will change to a local van and up to half-way guesthouse and start they 2 hours’ hiking from half way to Tina’.The Tiger Leaping Gorge, or Hutiaoxia in Chinese, is the Yangzi’s best-known gorge after the Three Gorges in Sichuan and Hubei. Wedged tightly between titanic cliffs, the river is so narrow here, as legend tells us, that a hunted tiger made his escape to the other side in a single bound. Here, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains and the Haba Snow Mountains lean close to each other and a large volume of torrent moving between them cutting deeper and deeper into the bottom of the gorge. In some places there is a drop of 3,000 meters to the water. Then meet your driver and drive to Shangri-la, have a short stop at Xiaozhongdian Grassland and take some photos, enjoy the high-altitude grassland scenery.Arrive at Shangri-La in the late afternoon, check in the hotel.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation:The Fifth Meteorite·Glory Hotel

Buffet breakfast at hotel.Visit Ganden Songzanlin Monastery in the morning. Songzanlin Monastery, the biggest monastery in Shangri-La , is built on a hill immitating the Potala Palace in Lhasa. More than 500 lamas live and study here. Then visit a Tibetan family where the Tibetan builds their houses by wood with big sitting room and Buddhism hall, try the home-made buttered tea and yak cheese .After lunch, try to paint Thangka. then visit Napa Lake, Napa Wetlands, or Lake Napa Nature Reserve (aka Lake Napa), lying in the valley of a high mountain plateau situated about 3270 m above sea level. Lake Napa is a so-called Ramsar site under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Most of the area is marshy wetland that becomes dry from late fall through winter, but from spring through summer, the area again becomes an expansive wetland that attracts countless flocks of birds, such as the bar-headed goose – as well as a number of other species of geese – the common mallard, the Himalayan griffon, the egret and the white-tailed eagle.Then, drive to visit Du Ke Zong Romantic Village

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation:The Fifth Meteorite·Glory Hotel

Buffet breakfast at hotel.Check out the hotel and transfer to Shangri-la airport.Service ends.