Dates: July 25th to August 7th, 2020 Arrival in Lijiang and transfer to hotel in the old town. Most people in Lijiang are Naxi, usually woman is the boss of the family, and she makes the decision and does most of the work at home, while the man just have a very leisure life, planting flowers in the gardens and playing the music Read more

Lijiang 2 nights

Drive to Puji village where we start to walk through the villages and climb up the hill. Through the pine forest for an hour, then reach Puji Monastery hidden in the mountain, which is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery built three hundred years ago, with copper roofs. No tourists come here but we can meet up with a few lamas and locals who take care of the Monastery. After visiting the Monastery, we drive to Yuhu village where the explorer Dr. Rock used to live for his research. It is a very beautiful Naxi village in front of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Visit the village and meet up with the locals. Visit the old town of Lijiang, which was built in the traditional wooden houses, with small rivers running through the town. We will walk through the old town to see the Naxi houses, and follow up the river to Black Dragon Pool where the water of the old town comes from. Here you can see the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain if the weather is fine. Read more

Lijiang 2 nights

Drive to visit the First Bend of the Yangtze, carry on to visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge between Mountains Haba and Jade Dragon. The Gorge is 19km long with the drops of 3900m from the top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain to the Yangtze River. There are three different parts of the Gorge and the narrowest part is only 30m wide. It’s said that someone saw a tiger jumped from one side to the other, hence the name. Both sides of the Gorge are very steep, with rocky mountains, but you will see the changes of the landscape as walking on. Drive up to Tibetan Tableland to see more mountains and grasslands and carry on to Shangri-La. Shangri-La is inhabited by Tibetans, and Tibetans live on the highest plateau on the earth and have a strong character and personality. From now on, we will travel through Tibetan region and meet up with them every day before arriving in Chengdu. We will learn more about them during the trip. Read more

Shangri-La 2 nights

Visit Ringsha Temple built on a hill in the area, is the first Tibetan yellow hat sect Buddhist temple, which is small and quiet. The tourists seldom come here but it is very popular among the local Tibetans. At the Chinese New Year, thousands of people will come to worship and express their good wishes for the coming year. In the temple, we can see how Tibetans make the praying flags, and you can also learn to make some praying flags by yourself and hang them over the mountain behind the temple to get your good luck. Visit Napa Lake and local Tibetan villages, visit the old town of Shangri-La Read more

Shangri-La 2 nights

Eight hours drive from Yunnan to Sichuan, driving through the zigzag mountain roads via a couple of valleys and pass by some local Tibetan villages along the way, and see the big forests along the road. The Big Snow Mountain Pass at 4380m in the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, here you can see many flowers and beautiful mountains near the pass, the road today is not as good as other days during the trip but the views are rewarding, worthwhile for the efforts to travel the rough road, and you will see the different style of Tibetan houses on Sichuan side. Read more

Xiangcheng 1 night

Visit Sanpiling Monastery. It was first built in 1654, and it’s one of the most important yellow hat sect Tibetan Buddhist Temples in Kham. In 1811, one of the ninth Dalai Lama’s assistant worked here as the head monk of the monastery and made the monastery famous throughout the area. The Monastery nowadays is rebuilt and much bigger than it was, and some more construction work is still going on. After visiting the monastery, we will drive to Litang via a Haizhishan mountain. Read more

Litang 3 night

On Aug.1st, we will see the Opening Ceremony of the Litang Horse Festival, there are more than 2,000 horses and hundreds of thousands of Tibetan people would gather together here. At the ceremony, you will see the finest Tibetan outfits’ with silver, gold and jewels, Tibetan dances and horse races. During the two days here, you will see the equine skills showed off by the nomads, traditional Tibetan Opera, and different kinds of dances. After the shows, you can walk into nomads’ tents and join them for a cup of butter tea and some tsampa. You don’t need to speak Tibetan but just say “Zhaxi Deli” to everybody and you will be well treated. Read more

Litang 3 nights

Litang Horse Festival was originally a religious festival of the Litang Monastery. When it was first celebrated 300 years ago, Lamas of the Monastery travelled around the holy mountain in the morning and held horse races in the afternoon. The festival was stopped in 1950 for political reasons, and restarted in 1963. Since then, the festival has been much extended. Now it lasts a week, though without much religious aspect. What we find now is spectacular horse races, Tibetan Operas, much singing and dancing, withal the best traditional clothes on display and horse market. Nomads from the area gather on Litang Grassland to build up their tents and take part in the festival. The festival attracts more and more people each year, with racing horses totaling over 2,000 and participating nomads totaling in tens of thousands. We spend another day to visit the Litang Horse Festival. We also visit Litang Monastery which is the biggest Yellow Sect monastery in south part of Kham. And see the old part of Lijiang. the 7th, 10th and 11th Dalai Lamas were all born in Litang, which made the Monastery very famous. Read more

Litang 3 nights

Drive to the grasslands and visit the Tibetan nomads, with their yaks and goats there. We can see them milk from the yaks and make butter. Nomads move from one place to another during the different time of the year according to the temperatures. When they move on, they not only move their tents but also a Buddhist shrine with them. Wherever they go, they will set up a temple tent, with some Buddhist images in it. This is a movable temple, so they can pray everyday . After visiting the nomads, we will carry on to Tagong via the Yajiang valley and the mountain passes. We can see Minya Konka, ,the highest mountain in Sichuan(7556m) along the way if the weather is fine. Read more

Tagong 2 nights

Visit Tagong Buddhist Collage, established in 1986 with hundreds of lamas study here, we can see the teachings of the collage in the temple. Visit the Tagong Monastery. Built during the Qing Dynasty to honor the journey of Princess Wencheng who stayed here on her way to Lhasa to marry the Tibetan King. The monastery houses sacred relics and statues and has a very impressive setting with snow-capped mountains providing a wonderful backdrop to its golden roofs. Drive to visit Zhaxi Nunnery, a big nunnery with a very big tent temple to nuns to study and a village near the temple to live in on the grassland. Here we can visit the temple, the houses where nuns live, the mountain nearby full of pray flags. We can also see lots of people carved the scriptures on stone. And walk around for some time, a nice place to walk around for a few hours of hours. Read more

Tagong 2 nights

Drive on the grasslands and up to the Zheduo Mountain at 4,962m via Xinduqiao, and we will stop here to walk up to the hill top with prayer flags to have the last look at the snow mountains and say good bye to Tibetans and carry onto Chengdu. Down the hill through the valley to Kangding and Luding, Drive up the hill through the Erlan Mountain tunnels, and down to Ya’an. Carry on to Chengdu on the express way. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan. It is a modern city but still has some old streets, tea houses and temples in the town. Chengdu is very famous for its food such as the hot-pot and hundreds of local snacks. Read more

Chendgu 2 nights

Visit the Giant Pandas and learn about them in the Panda Research Centre, visit Wenshu Temple, one of the well protected Buddhist temples in Chengdu, which was built in 1697. It’s very popular among the locals and you can still see a lot of local people who come here every day to pray and worship. Most people who come to the temple are not really Buddhists. They just come for different reasons like praying for health, good luck, property and anything you can think about. Visit Wide and Narrow Lances with tea houses and local handicrafts shops that give you some ideas of how the old Chengdu looks like. Read more

Chengdu 2 nights

Transfer to Chengdu Airport and fly home