1-Day Shangri-La Monastery and Lake Tour

After breakfast, your driver and tour guide will pick you up from your hotel in Dukezong Ancient town and take you to Songzanlin Monastery, also called ‘Little Potala Palace’ as this 17th century monastery is modeled after the Potala Palace in Lhasa. 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. The chickens are really incredible indeed and if you want to know their story and why they crossed the road to live in a monastery, you will have to go there to find the answer. After this temple visit, you will go to Napa Lake, a beautiful highland meadow full of yaks, horses and more birds. 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. At the end of the day you will head back to Dukezong ancient town, where this tour will end. We wish you a great trip to wherever you are off to next!