Yunnan Classic 6-Day Tour: Kunming, Dali & Lijiang

Overview

• ✓Stone Forest — 400 square kilometres of grey karst pinnacles
• ✓Dali old town and the Bai minority villages around Erhai Lake
• ✓Cangshan mountain cable car with views across the lake
• ✓Lijiang old town, a UNESCO site of Naxi architecture and water channels
• ✓Jade Dragon Snow Mountain glacier park at 4,506 m by cable car
• ✓Baisha murals, blending Han, Tibetan and Naxi religious painting
• ✓High-speed rail between all three cities

1. 1 Arrival in Kunming

   🍽Dinner 🏨Kunming, 4-star hotel

   Afternoon: Your guide meets you at Kunming Changshui airport — the city sits at 1,890 metres and is known as the Spring City for a climate that rarely gets very hot or very cold. Transfer to the hotel.

   Late afternoon: If time allows, Green Lake Park in the city centre, where the Plane Tree avenue and the wintering black-headed gulls (November to March) make it the most pleasant public space in Kunming.

   Evening: Welcome dinner of Yunnan cooking — the province's specialities run to wild mushrooms, crossing-the-bridge noodles, steam-pot chicken cooked in a special earthenware vessel, and the sour, herbal flavours of the Dai and Yi kitchens. None of it tastes much like the Chinese food most travellers have had.

   Practical note: Kunming's altitude is mild but real. Take the first evening gently and drink more water than usual.

2. 2 Stone Forest, then Rail to Dali

   🍽Breakfast, Lunch 🏨Dali, 4-star hotel

   08:00 - Stone Forest: A 90-minute drive east to a karst field of grey limestone pinnacles rising up to 40 metres, formed over 270 million years as a shallow sea floor was uplifted and then dissolved by rain. The Yi people call the main cluster Shilin, and the paths through it thread between towers, past a natural stone bridge and the Ashima rock said to be the petrified form of a Yi girl. We spend two to three hours walking the main and lesser stone forests.

   12:30 - Lunch: Yi minority cooking near the site — cured ham, buckwheat cakes and wild herb dishes.

   14:30 - High-speed rail: Around two hours west to Dali.

   17:00 - Dali old town: Founded in the 14th century on the shore of Erhai Lake with the nineteen peaks of the Cangshan range behind it. The grid of the old town survives, along with the city gate towers and the foreigner's street where cafés and guesthouses have gathered for thirty years.

   Evening: Free to explore. Dali after dark is the best time for it — the crowds go and the lanes quieten down.

3. 3 Erhai Lake, Bai Villages & Cangshan

   🍽Breakfast, Lunch 🏨Dali, 4-star hotel

   08:30 - Erhai by boat: The ear-shaped lake is the second largest highland lake in Yunnan and the spiritual centre of the Bai people, who have fished and farmed its shore for more than a thousand years. We cross to the eastern shore, passing cormorant fishers and the floating mats of water plants harvested for fertiliser.

   11:00 - Xizhou: The best-preserved of the Bai villages, with whitewashed courtyard houses whose walls are decorated with calligraphy and ink painting — a tradition the Bai adopted from the Han and made their own. The Yan Family Compound and the nearby Dong Family Courtyard are open to visitors.

   12:30 - Lunch: Bai cuisine in Xizhou — sour fish from the lake, rushan grilled milk-fan cheese, and the savoury-sweet combinations the Bai prefer.

   14:30 - Cangshan cable car: A 2,600-metre ascent up the range behind Dali, with views across the lake and, on clear days, all the way to the Jade Dragon range in the north. The path along the ridge is level and easy, with rhododendron and cloud forest at the upper elevations.

   17:30 - Lakeside cycle: An optional hour on hired bicycles along the western shore, which has been closed to motor vehicles and is now the best way to see the lake at ground level.

4. 4 Rail to Lijiang & the Naxi Old Town

   🍽Breakfast, Lunch 🏨Lijiang courtyard guesthouse

   09:00 - High-speed rail: Around 90 minutes north to Lijiang, crossing from the Bai south into Naxi country.

   11:00 - Black Dragon Pool: Just north of the town, a spring-fed pool that holds the single most photographed reflection in Yunnan — the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain framed by the Moon-Embracing Pavilion and the Five-Phoenix Tower. It works best in the morning before the wind gets up.

   12:30 - Lunch: Naxi cooking. Try the baba flatbread, the Naxi hotpot with preserved pork rib, and the jidou liangfen chickpea jelly served cold with vinegar and chilli.

   14:30 - Lijiang old town: A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997, built by the Naxi people over 800 years without a city wall, and laid out around a system of channels that carry meltwater from the mountain through the streets. The Naxi are the only people in China still using a pictographic script — Dongba — and you will see it on shopfronts and signboards throughout.

   17:00 - Free evening: Wander the lanes. The town is at its best after the day-trippers leave; the water channels, willows and the sound of running water underfoot are genuinely special.

   Practical note: Lijiang sits at 2,400 metres. Some people feel the altitude on the first night — take it easy and avoid alcohol on the first evening.

5. 5 Jade Dragon Snow Mountain & Baisha Murals

   🍽Breakfast, Lunch 🏨Lijiang courtyard guesthouse

   08:00 - Jade Dragon Snow Mountain: Thirteen peaks running north to south, the highest at 5,596 metres, holding the southernmost glacier in the northern hemisphere. The scenic area takes you by shuttle and then cable car to the Glacier Park viewing platform at 4,506 metres — a serious altitude gain in a short time. Walk slowly, and your guide carries oxygen for anyone who needs it.

   11:00 - Blue Moon Valley: Below the glacier, a series of terraced pools coloured a milky turquoise by the calcium carbonate in the meltwater, set against grey scree and snow. The boardwalks are flat and the walk is easy.

   12:30 - Lunch near the scenic area exit.

   14:30 - Baisha village: The oldest settlement in the Lijiang basin and the Naxi capital before the Ming, at the foot of the mountain. The Baisha murals in the Dabaoji Palace were painted between the 15th and 17th centuries by Naxi, Han, Tibetan and Bai artists, and they combine Han Buddhist, Taoist and Tibetan Buddhist iconography in the same room — a record of exactly the cultural mixture this region is known for.

   16:30 - Return: Back to Lijiang for a final evening.

   Evening: Optional Impression Lijiang, Zhang Yimou's outdoor performance staged on a red-earth set with the mountain as backdrop and several hundred local farmers and herders as cast.

6. 6 Departure from Lijiang

   🍽Breakfast 🏨Not included

   Morning: Depending on your flight, a last walk through the old town while the streets are quiet, or a visit to the Mu Family Mansion — the residence of the Naxi chieftains who governed Lijiang for 470 years, rebuilt after an earthquake but on the original footprint and giving a clear sense of how the town was ruled.

   Late morning: Transfer to Lijiang Sanyi airport, or to the railway station for the high-speed service to Kunming (around three hours) if you are continuing overland.

   Practical note: Lijiang airport has limited connections, mostly to Kunming, Chengdu, Beijing and Shanghai. If you are flying out of Kunming, we recommend booking the mid-morning train rather than an internal flight.

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