4 Days Dali, Lijiang & Shangri-La Tour (Departing from Dali)

Day 1 Dali

Visit the morning market in Xizhou, see traditional Bai-style courtyards and explore the Bai minority’s culture and sip the typical fragrant Three-Course Tea. Take a cruise on Erhai Lake to Jinsuo Island, a local cormorant-bird fishing village. Enjoy the view of the green and clouded Cangshan Mountain Range looming over the Three Pagodas from afar.

Continue to Zhoucheng Village and visit a tie-dye factory. Then your guide will take you to your hotel and you will have free time, have a drink in one of Dali’s many cozy little bars or warmly decorated coffeeshops.

Meals: B/L

Hotel: Dali Landscape Hotel or similar

Day 2 Dali – Lijiang

Drive from Dali to Lijiang. Drop by the Zhongyi Morning Market. Then visit the iconic Black Dragon Pool and the Dongba Museum, where you can learn about the unique matriarch Naxi minority culture. Afterwards, take a visit to close Jade Lake Village, where you can visit the previous residence of Joseph Rock, a Victorian National Geographic explorer and botanist who spend over 20 years of his life in this area.

Before you to back to Lijiang Old town, you will stop by peaceful Shuhe Ancient Town with almost no other tourists.

Meals: B/L

Hotel: Lijiang Wangfu Hotel or similar

 Day 3 Lijiang – Shangri-La

Visit the First Bend of the Yangtze River before you continue to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, your tour guide will meet you here.

As you continue to Shangri-La, notice the landscape change, with barley fields and yaks scattered across the valleys and the year-round snow-capped mountains towering above you. Then you will arrive at Dukezong Ancient town, the old town center in Zhongdian city, where the locals still preserve the old Tibetan way of life, crafting traditional jewelry made of silver or horn, earth ware and daggers.

Meals: B/L

Hotel: Shangri-La Zhaxidele Hotel or similar

Day 4 - Shangri-La

After breakfast, your driver and tour guide will pick you up from your hotel and take you to Songzanlin Monastery, It is the largest Tibetan monastery in Yunnan with over 700 monks actively practicing Tibetan Buddhism. Afterwards we will visit a local Tibetan family to experience the real Tibetan life and hospitality.

After lunch, you will take a look at Baiji Temple, which literally means “hundred chickens temple” in Chinese and is very close to Dukezong Ancient Town. From this temple you can enjoy a wonderful birds-eye view of the city and see many, many chickens.

Then take a relaxed break in Shangri-La’s High Mountain Resort to enjoy a cup of coffee at Napa Lake, The meadow looks different every season: in summer wild flowers turn it into a colorful carpet, in winter the meadows turn into fields of gold, and in the spring green land stretches to the skyline. Head back to Dukezong ancient town where your tour will end.