China

We wake up at dawn, the views are breathtaking.....We go back to sleep and have breakfast at the Sunny.

Dawn in Yuanyang

We wake up around 6 a.m., today we have a hard day until we reach Xinjie, our gateway to explore the rice fields of Yuangyan.

We had breakfast at the Dragonfly Hostel. In this hostel they have helped us to get accommodation in Kunming (Upland), through Sara from Dragonfly they get us the bus tickets from Dali to Kunmig and from Kunming to Yuangyan. All thanks to Sara.

We have breakfast in the room and take the 7:10 bus to Dali.

Dali market

Today we visited Lijiang (Dayan), a majority etnia Naxi (matriarchal community). To be able to access the old city you have to pay some tickets, in the hostel some girls  left us 3 of other visitors and we promised to return them when we left, we bought the rest. You have to show them at each of the entrances or exits.

We woke up in the quiet village of Naxi, today it is clearer although the clouds cover the nearby peaks. We make our way back to the entrance of the park and go to the road to wait for a bus to take us to our next destination, Lijiang.

Dawn breaks in Naxi village

We get up early to get to the bus station, our next destination Quiaotou, there we start the trekking through the Tiger Leaping Gorge (according to the Chinese tradition a tiger escaped from a hunter by jumping the mighty river). It is a huge natural gorge with breathtaking views located in the Yulong Xueshan National Park.

Today we will visit the city and the famous Tibetan Monastery of Ganden Sumtseling known as the small Potala because of its resemblance to the great monastery of Lhasa.

Tibetan Monastery of Ganden Sumtseling

We get up at 5:30 and take the van to Xiancheng at 6. The driver tries to sneak us into a countryman who was very big (almost two meters tall) and almost couldn't fit in the van, we told him no.

Road to Shangri La

We left at 6 a.m. from the bus station outside Kangding, arriving in Litang 6 hours later.

Road to Litang