D1

Arrive in Guilin, a place of impressive natural beauty. meet at airport and transfer to your hotel.

D2

Take a boat cruise down Li river to Yangshuo, enjoy the most beautiful scenery in China. afternoon free time in Yangshuo, then drive back to Guilin.

D3

Sightseeing in Guilin, after lunch, take flight to Chongqing, the big city by the side of Yangtze, board your 4 star boat. (There are many 4 star boats)
Enjoy a night show provided by the crew.

D4

Cruise down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges, which stretch for 124 miles and vary from 330 feet to 985 feet in width.

D5

Continue cruise down the river, stop at Wuhan and change to small junk to explore the fascinating Mini Three Gorges.

D6

Arrive in Yichang in the morning, visit the Three Gorge Dam, then catch a flight to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, well known as the Spring City of China, meet at airport and transfer to your hotel.

D7

Sightseeing in the Stone Forest, which is one of the great nature wonders of China, it is also the largest stone forest in the world.

D8

Take a morning flight to Dali, a city just opened to foreigners in 1984. Set beside a lake and against a backdrop of mountains, you will see the local agriculture, observe small temples and visit local markets. Visit Dali Old Town and Three Pagodas, a landmark on a hillside northeast of Dali. The tallest of the these ancient temples tops 200 feet. In the afternoon, We will take a leisurely two-hour boat ride on Erhai Lake, While on the lake, we visit Putao Bai temple, built on a rock island, and explore a Bai fishing village. 
Dali is famous for its marble deposits, its sturdy breed of horses, its embroidery, and its woodcarving artists. Dali was the capital of the Nanzhou Kingdom during the 8th and 9th centuries and at its height conquered parts of Burma, Laos, and Thailand as well as parts of Sichuan to the northwest.

D9

We get an early start for our drive to Lijiang today. Along the way, we visit Zhoucheng village, known for its batic. The Stone Bell Hill is an ancient complex of cave grottoes nestled into the shoulder of pine forested mountains. It is this spot that the monarchs of Dali's Nanzhou Kingdom picked to build their Buddhist temples from the 7th to 9th centuries. We explore the grotto temples and appreciate their fantastic frescoes depicting Nanzhou Kings meeting with Persian envoys with the Indian Buddhist teachers that the kings revered. The frescoes also reveal aspects of Nanzhou life at that time. Arriving in time for dinner. Lijiang, set at a refreshing altitude of 7,800 feet, is capital of the Naxi Autonomous prefecture. Its charming old center is a world of cobbled streets, canals, and stone bridges that date from the Ming Dynasty.

D10

Lijiang is the capital of thr Naxi people, a small but fascinating ethnic minority known for their matriarchal society, their pictographic language, and their distinctive music. They are believed to be descended from the Qiang, a Tibetan tribe that once lived in the northwest mountains of Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai. Traditionally, Naxi women have managed trade and commerce, while men have been musicians, gardeners, and child-rearers, and today Naxi society is largely run along those lines. We'll recognize the Naxi women by their traditional embroidered capes, blue blouses, and trousers covered with blue or black aprons. The Naxi language is completely pictographic and only Naxi shamans are taught how to write it. Famed botanist Dr. Joseph Rock prepared the first dictionary of Naxi language during the decades he lived in Lijiang and he also became an expert on Naxi culture. We will visit the Black Dragon Pool Park, we enjoy beautiful views of 18,000-foot-high Yulong Shan (Jade Dragon Mountain ) reflected in the waters of Black Dragon Pool. Explore Lijiang Old Town and the Square Market.

D11

We make a visit to the outlying village of Baisha, the old capital of the Naxi, where we can admire the frescoes on one of its ancient temples. We also walk up to the small Yufengsi Monastery, a great center of learning in ancient times, we will meet members of the Red Hat Tibetan Buddhist sect. Set among hills on the southwest side of Jade Dragon Mountain, Yufengsi is noted for one of its huge camellia trees, thought to be 500 years old and known as the Camellia Tree of Ten Thousand Blossoms. During the Cultural Revolution , a monk saved the tree by sneaking into the abandoned monastery grounds at night to water it . On our circuit, we also visit Lonquan, a very beautiful traditional village with a small temple. Back in Lijiang, we enjoy an evening walking tour and dinner in the picturesque central quarter of the city, with its old, wooden Naxi houses.

D12

We head further north today, driving though Naxi farmlands and villages and enjoying the extremely picturesque back drop of Jade Dragon Mountain.
Tobacco, apples, rice, corn, beans are grown in this region. Visit the village of Stone Drum at the First Bend of the Yangtze River. Also stop at famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Our road journey takes us higher and higher. You'll spend some time at altitudes above 9,000' through mixed forest, then up into alpine and rhododendron forests, and then into a rich grassland valley on the Tibetan Plateau.

D13

Zhongdian is the capital of Dechen Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It is located in the southernmost part of Kham, or East Tibet, traditional land of the tall, turbaned Khampa horsemen. Today, Zhongdian is principally a Tibetan township but has Han Chinese people as well as a smattering of Bai, Hui, and Naxi minorties. Historically, the town was a trading center between Tibet, Burma, and India. Mule caravans once made around journeys to conduct commerce between the regions. One of the major trade items was brick tea from Yunnan, in demand by Tibetan nomads and farmers. We spend one day around Zhongdian. Our activities include a visit to the spectacular Ganden Sumsanling Monastery, built at the instruction of the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century, where more than 800 monks now live and practice. It is picturesquely located on top of a hill and its style very much recalls the Potala Palace in Lhasa. We drive to the lake called Shudu for a picnic lunch and a walk around the lake, with its wildflower meadows, grazing yaks, and primary rhododendron forests. From April to September, there are beautiful wildflower displays around the lake, and in October, the autumn colors around the lake make it one of the most beautiful spots in the valley.

D14

We drive further north on the Yunnan-Tibet road today, crossing several passes before we descend 3,000 feet into the Yangtze. Here in the warmer climate, orange, pomegranate, and walnut orchards grow and villages are blessed with two crops a year. We1ll stop along the way to visit villages where local crafts include hand-made wooden tsampa bowls and a special type of black pottery. We continue on to visit the Donzhuling Monastery, the second largest in the region, cross over the Baima Pass to enter Baima Reserve, part of the largest National Park in China, and Dechen, currently the last border town before Tibet. Stay at three star Kawa karpo Hotel in Dechen. 

D15

Today we drive into the countryside outside of Dechen to visit an overlook where we can get a great look at sacred Mount Kawakarpo(21,220 feet), a Tibetan pilgrimage peak. Our drive continues in through the spectacular upper Mekong gorge, where we can see the huge glaciers that flow down the mountain. Drive back to Zhongdian.

D16

Fly back to Kunming in the morning, after lunch, transfer to airport and see you off.