Upon arriving in Kunming, your tour guide will meet you and escort you to your hotel. Then you can have a free relax with local leisure life (walk around Cuihu Gree Lake or Jinma Biji Fang for option) for the rest of the day.
After breakfast, today tour will start with Kunming Flowers & Birds Market or Green Lake (Cuihu). Then drive 1.5 hours (90 KM) to visit the Stone Forest. The Stone Forest covers 26,000-hectare and from a distance, it does indeed look like a forest of stones with its peaks and odd-shaped rocks standing straight up from the ground. You can walk around the forest on paths that have been built and there is some stair climbing involved if you want to walk around it. Drive back to Kunming.
Take a morning flight to Dali. Upon arrival in Dali, you will be transfered to visit Zhoucheng Village for local Bai people's traditional Tie-dye cloth art workshop. Then visit the Three Pagodas in Chongsheng Monastery which has a history of over 1,800 years located at the foot of Cangshan Mountain facing to the Erhai Lake. Three Pagodas are made of three ancient independent pagodas forming a symmetrical triangle. In the afternoon, you will visit the Ancient Dali Town, walk around the Foreigner Street and enjoy the relax time with local people. After climbing up to the city wall of Dali, you will have panoramic view of the Erhai Lake.
After a morning experience to Xizhou local market and Yan Family Mansion with full Bai-style traditional architectural courtyards, taste their fragrant Three-Course Tea and explore their distinctive culture. Then drive about 180 km (3 hours) to Lijiang. You'll head for the scenic Black Dragon Pool and the Dongba Museum to explore the rich Naxi minority culture.
In the evening, explore Lijiang Old Town. It has a history more than 800 years; it was listed as the World Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO 1997. Here you will see the wonderful wooden architecture of Naxi ethnic people.
After breakfast, you will pay a morning visit to Yuhu Village (Jade Lake Village), where you have overlook view of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a holy mountain for the Naxi people that is located 15km north of Lijiang city. Then visit Locke's Former Residence.
Stroll through Baisha Old Town, which is an enchanting traditional Naxi style old town, where houses Baisha Murals made in succession from the early Ming dynasty to the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing dynasty. These mural paintings, with their fine and smooth lines, bright colors, vivid pattern and balanced and harmonious composition are a wonderful sight. Today's tour will end with Shuhe Ancient Town.
Drive 3.5 hours to the Lugu Lake. Visiting the Mosuo families, taste Mosuo food. Have a bonfire party tonight, dancing with the pretty and graceful Mosuo girls. Lugu Lake is a shimmering pearl which is the native place of "The Females' Kingdom" composed of the Mosuo people, a unique matriarchate well-preserved by the indigenous Mosuo people, who are a branch of the Naxi ethnic minority group.
A cruise in the Lugu lake by "pig-trough" boats". The water of the lake is generally clean and green, with different shades of colour: now turquoise blue, now sapphire blue, now white-gray, simply beyond one's imagination. Teeming in the lake are fine-scaled fish, carps and other species. Visit the Liwubi Island and the Headman's Island.
In the late afternoo, you'll return to Lijiang City.
From Lijiang, you'll drive about 60KM to the First Bend on the Yangtze River with imposing gorge scenery, visit the Iron Chain Bridge,the Red Army's Long March Memorial Monument in the Shigu Old Town. The town of Stone Drum got its name from a large, cylindrical, marble tablet shaped like a drum. The scenery is magnificent as the road running through the Lijiang valley which is filled with wheat fields and drying haystacks.
Continue to visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest gorge in the world. Located on the Jinsha River of the upper reaches of the Yangtze, 105 kilometers south of Shangrila County. The gorge is 17 kilometers long with a drop of 213 meters. Tiger Leaping Gorge is divided into three sections: Upper, Middle and Lower Hutiao. At the narrowest spot the river is only 30 meters wide. The mouth of the gorge is 1,800 meters above sea level. The river is flanked by Yulong and Haba snow mountains, with a height difference of 3,900 meters.
In the late afternoon, you'll head for Shangri La, formerly named Zhongdian where is well known as the paradise destination for every tourist. Upon arrival in Shangri La, you will have entered the Tibetan cultural area and a landscape of barley fields and yaks scattered in the valleys.
In the morning, you will visit Songzanlin Monastery located at the foot of Mt. Foping, four kilometers north of Zhongdian County, a monastery was first built here in 1679 and has been rebuilt many times.
Then you'll visit the tranquil Bita Lake & Shudu Lake in Pudacuo National Park. Pudacuo National Park is located in one of the most biologically-diverse regions of the world. While the region comprises only 0.7 percent of China's land area, it contains more than 20 percent of the country's plant species, about one-third of its mammal and bird species and almost 100 endangered species. Visit Dabao Monastery on the way back from Pudacuo National Park.
On this day you will be free until your tour guide escorts you to the airport for your flight to your next destination.
