6 Days Grand Circle Tour in Northwest Yunnan

Depart from the hotel at 08:30am, and drive 80km / 2 hours to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Upon your arrival at Tiger Leaping Gorge Scenic Area, you would need to walk down for around 20 mins along the wooden plank road and get to the side of Tiger Leaping Gorge. You can also pay and take escalators down to the viewing platform. Spend around 20 mins to take picture about it and appreciate the stunning view. Then go back along the original way. Continue to drive 2 hours /80km to visit White Water Terrace where this happens in so few places in the world.  Then drive 2.5 hours / 95km to Shangri-la City. You would stay at The Blue Moon on the mountains Inn. You can appreciate the local Tibetan people dancing in the central square of Dukezong Ancient Town in the evening, it would be a nice experience, please remember that you should be there at 8pm.

Remark:

The water crushes heavily mostly in Jun-Sep because of the raining season in Tiger Leaping Gorge. And the water color is yellow and muddy at these months. Because of the flooding river, the gorge was drowned as well. And the color of the water is clean in rest of the months, the gorge is re-appeared.

Depart from the hotel at 08:30am, firstly we would go and visit The Little Potala Palace – Gedan Songzanlin Monastery which is the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple complex in Yunnan Province. Spend around 2.5 hours there. Then we start to drive 78km / 1.5hours to Benzilan which lies along a stretch of the Jinsha River (a major headwater stream of the Yangtze River) that forms the border with Sichuan Province after lunch at Shangri-la city. You would stop for a while and take the picture of The Great Bends of Jinsha River like the picture showed as below. Then continue to drive 26mins /17km to East Bamboo Temple which the scale is much smaller than Gedan Songzanlin Monastery but the local monks are much simple and pure, they would show you their enthusiasm when you visit their temple. Then we would drive to Feilaisi Temple in Deqin County, on the way you would pass the 4292m high White Snow Mountain Pass and reach Feilaisi Temple. It takes 2.5hours driving from East Bamboo Temple to Feilaisi Temple. Stay overnight at 4* High Mountain Resort. Situated to the east of Meli Snow Mountain, Feilai Temple is the best position to enjoy the view of Meili Snow Mountain. And High Mountain Resort is the only hotel which you can see the Meili Snow Mountain on the grassland inside the hotel.

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Remark: The White Horse Snow Mountain looks the most beautiful in each May and Oct, so if the weather is good, we would drive 30 mins more distance to follow the old national way but not high-way and show you the best point to view White Horse Snow Mountain.

Get up at around 06:20am and go to the viewing platform to watch the sunrise on the Meili Snow Mountain.  It is important to get there before sunrise to see the color changing and suddenly catch the first ray. The first golden light hit the top of Kawagarbo, which of course was the highest in the range. The 2nd one was the Miancimu on the far left which was the 4th highest peak in the range. The golden light show ended in about 10 minutes, and the mountains turned to white color of the snow. After breakfast, we would drive you to Cizhong, a town with only 140 households and 120 households'religion is Catholic at 100 years ago. On the way drivig to Cizhong, you would pass the Grand Canyon of Lancang River. And the high altitude is from 3400m going down to 1900m. Today you would visit Cizhong Catholic Church, Cizhong village combines distinctly chinese architectural elements with christian symbols and is a such a curiosity. The bell tower, though having a chinese roof with upturned eaves resembles very much european specimens. Make sure to call ahead and check if father Yao is around to show you the beautifully decorated interior. Take a close look at the lintels of the houses along the main street, you'll find a lot of crosses among the lovely carvings! And then you would sample the red wine made by local Tibetan villagers using the grapes grown in the church vineyard which left by French 100 years ago. Stayovernight at 4* Songtsam Hotel.

Remark: The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas lives over 16 ethnic groups, and they still accept the western culture to grow up and affected lots of the people here. So it seems that the people are quite compatible for the culture here.

Depart from your hotel at 08:30am and drive along the way with Jinsha River, after 1.5hours driving, you would down to an off beaten path scenic spot named Nanjiluo where you nearly can't find any information on the internet for it. Now only 4x4 can drive to Nanjiluo, but the road is under construction now, 14 persons bus can be got through after the project has been done. There is snow mountain, forest, lakes in Nanjiluo but as inaccessible so there is less tourists come here. You can enjoy the isolate, mysterious, quiet and peaceful atmosphere there alone and temperararily apart from the noisy and crowds. You would feel that you are in a stroll of picture. Then continue to drive 2 hours to Tongle Lisu Ethnic Village. Tongle, a village in Weixi, is a traditional village inhabited by people of the Lisu ethnic group live in Tibetan autonomous prefecture, it is also one of the oldest Lisu villages in Weixi. It has a history of nearly 300 years. Tongle is a good place to enjoy the breathtaking scenery of the lofty mountains and the fast-flowing rivers. After visiting The Lisu people are one of the ancient nationalities in China. After that, you would drive to Tacheng Town. Stay overnight at 4 star Songtsam Tacheng Hotel. (The best hotel in Tacheng Town which built inside the rice terrace field).
 

Get up a bit early and enter the Golden Monkey National Park before 9 as the best time to watch the monkey is in the morning. As they would go for sleeping at around 10:30am! Because you need to take the environmental-friendly bus to reach the center of the scenic spot. The breeder would be feed the monkey during 09:00-10:30am. So it's the best time to watch the monkey during these 1.5 hours. China launched a program to protect this legendary species and save the best primary forests in an area of the Three Parallel Rivers, the famous world heritage site, that's sandwiched between The Yangtze River and The Mekong River. Take a long camera lens if you have one. You would have chance to see a dozen or some monkeys jumping, tusseling and swinging from branches. It was really interesting and you would get good photoes. Then drive 2.5 hours / 120km to Liming Town and stay overnight at 4 star Nuomadi Inn.
 

Morning depart from hotel at 08:30am and walk to the Mt Laojun Mountain National Geological Park.  Peaks with tortoise shell shape surface are unique here.

Liming Danxia Landforms are mainly are composed by large red colord cliffs, special tortoise sehll peaks, multi layer and odd shaped mountains. Three typical features of Danxia Landform are flat top, deep slope and gentle base. Also visible here is a sharp peak that is a glacier feature. Laojun Mountain belongs to Danxia landform, which is formed from red-coloured sandstones and conglomerates of largely Cretaceous age. Lisu minority lives in Laojun Mountain area, you would also have another chance to get close to them except visiting Tongle village on day04. Compared to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Lijiang Ancient Town, this is a lesser-known mountain to tourists including the Chinese. So there is no crowds be met in this scenic spot and it's really another off-beaten-track attraction again. After hiking on the mountain, we would drive you 66KM/2hours back to Lijiang Ancient Town. The accommodation on Lijiang Ancient Town is on your own book.