| Today's Activities |
After having a buffet breakfast at your hotel, drive 180 kilometers for about 3 hours to Lijiang along the new highway.
En route, visit the Bai minority village at Xizhou. Xizhou is 23 kilometers north of Dali with a more mixed population and cosmopolitan background. Here you will see Family Yan's courtyard, a very good example of traditional Bai houses. And each morning, villagers in Bai dresses gather in a small market to buy and sell their produce and daily wares.
Then continue driving to Shaping to visit the Shaping Market, a local market held on every Monday. On this market, the local people from surrounding villages come to exchange their daily wares, farming products, traditional clothes, or simply foods and vegetables.
After arriving in Lijiang, check in at hotel, the rest of the day is left for you to explore the little town on your own.
Lijiang is a small mountain town of stone and tile, laced with swift canals, which was enlisted as an UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in 1999 enjoying a long history of over 800 years. Unlike most of the old towns in China, there is no city walls due to a superstitious belief of the local ruler whose family name is Mu (tree), when encircled by walls, would be Kun (besieged). Wooden structures, mountains, small rivers and lanes integrate harmoniously in this mountain town. Lijiang is about 2500 meters above sea level.
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