China
Other suggested itineraries
Far-Flung China
The following are suggested experiences that Remote Lands can incorporate into your custom-made itinerary.
Destinations include: Beijing, Kashgar, Lhasa, Zhongdian, Lijiang, Dali, Chengdu, Urumqi, Dunhuang, Kunming, Harbin and Guilin.
Beijing
Upon arrival, check in to one of Remote Lands’ recommended hotels in Beijing: the stylish Opposite House, the ultra modern Park Hyatt Beijing, the spacious and lavish Raffles Beijing Hotel, the luxurious Peninsula Beijing, or the beautifully historic Aman at the Summer Palace.
Celebrate your arrival with a banquet of peking duck at one of the city's best traditional Chinese restaurants.
Fly across the country to Kashgar, one of the major outposts of the ancient Silk Road in the Uighur Autonomous Region.
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Kashgar
Wander through the narrow, winding streets and enticing shops of this bustling medieval city, once one of the most prosperous trading towns in Asia. Take in the diversity of the various ethnic groups, and see their customs and lifestyles mesh in the urban metropolis.
Visit several of Kashgar's historic and elegant mosques with a professor specializing in the history of China's Muslim minorities, finishing at the giant Id Kha mosque in the heart of the city, the largest mosque in China.
Have a dinner of traditional Xinjiang food, with its unique blend of Chinese, Central Asian, and Middle Eastern/Indian elements. Try spicy stews made with lamb and generous quantities of chili pepper, or thick noodles and tomatoes, as well as the Uighur flatbread, called nan.
Spend a night in the desert in a yurt, the traditional dwelling of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia, hosted by a Tajik family, one of a number of Turkic peoples who reside in the Kashgar area.
Visit the Yekshenba Bazaar, the largest open-air market in the world with over 100,000 vendors from as far away as Pakistan and Uzbekistan offering their wares and services. You can buy everything from carpets and fine silks to cows to camels.
Fly from Kashgar to Lhasa, the ancient political and religious capital of Tibet.
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Lhasa
Check in to the luxurious St. Regis Lhasa, which opened in November 2010. Dine at your hotel this evening, relaxing and acclimating to the air at 12,000 feet above sea level.
With your private expert guide, visit the phenomenal Potala Palace. Once the winter residence of the Dalai Lama, this architectural wonder is now a museum and treasure trove of Tibetan history, housing magnificent pearls, jewels and antiques.
Explore the vibrant street market of Barkhor Square, where you can haggle with local vendors for goods such as prayer flags, block prints of the holy scriptures, jewelry, and Tibetan boots and incense, as devout pilgrims circle the streets around you.
Learn the art of painting thangkas — Tibetan Bhuddist devotional artworks painted on cloth or silk using rich pigments and intricate, perfectly balanced compositions from a master artist.
Make a pilgrimage to the Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s holiest temple and host to thousands of devout Tibetan pilgrims from all over Tibet and China. Walk a clockwise kora (religious perambulation) around the periphery of the temple, and see the Jowo Rimpoche, a giant, solid-gold statue of Sakyamuni Buddha. Have a private blessing with one of the senior monks and chat with him about his life and beliefs.
Eat at the Makye Ame, a small café catering to the trekking with second-floor views over the perambulating crowds below. Take in the warm, boisterous atmosphere while dining on simple, but delicious Nepali/Tibetan specialties such as momos — hearty dumplings filled with mixed vegetables, potatoes or meat, yak meat with radishes, or thupka, a fiery noodle soup made with traditional barley-flour noodles.
Meet with students from Braille Without Borders, a local school started by German expatriate Sabriye Tenberken, who became blind in her teens. She is featured in the documentary "Blindsight," the inspirational film about a mountaineering expedition to Mount Everest led by the first blind man to summit Everest, Erik Weihenmayer.
Visit Sera, a 15th century monastery and former home to 5,000 Gelugpa monks. The temple is famous for its extremely lively debate sessions over the finer points of Buddhist philosophy that go on in the courtyard every afternoon, a most interesting glimpse into Tibetan Buddhism.
See Drepung, a 15th-Century monastery once the largest monastic institution of any religion in the world. Participate in debate sessions, prayer incantations, and yak butter tea and tsampa (roast barley), or visit the Maitreya, a two-story statue of the future Buddha. Go behind the scenes and have tea and a snack with one of the master lamas in his private chambers, and learn about his life as a devout Buddhist.
Journey to Yamdrok-tso Lake, one of the three holiest lakes in Tibet. Rife with aquatic life, dotted with islets, and surrounded by fields of wildflowers, the lake is an important place of worship: its waters are believed to revive youth in the aged, ensure longevity to adults, and bless children with intelligence.
Fly from Lhasa to Zhongdian, high on the Tibetan Plateau in an area of Yunnan now officially known as “Shangri-La” after the fabled Himalayan kingdom of James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon.
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Zhongdian
Check in to the lovely Banyan Tree Ringha, a bastion of luxury in the serene outskirts of Zhongdian, the capital of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Characterized by flat-roofed and richly decorated buildings, the town was formerly an important staging stop for trading caravans, and it retains the rich cultural heritage of the local Kham people of Tibetan origin.
Lunch at the Songsten Hotel, filled with the owner’s excellent collection of rare Tibetan antiques.
Drive into Zhongdian and explore the Old Town. Shop for Himalayan arts and crafts, such as prayer flags, thangkas, jewelry and traditional clothes, and visit the Zong Gu Monastery, home to the world’s largest prayer wheel.
Visit the Songzanlin Monastery, the largest Tibetan monastery in Yunnan Province. Join the monks for a private blessing ceremony, before having tea with a senior lama in his private chambers. You will be able to visit parts of the monastery normally off-limits to visitors, including the kitchen, bedrooms and storage rooms.
Enjoy an authentic traditional dinner and cooking demonstration in the home of a local family. Savory yak-butter tea, stewed yak meat, and cheese made from yak’s milk are all staples in the local diet, highlighting the importance of the hardy animal to the people of this remote region. After dinner, join the locals for a dance in the village square, a unique local tradition that goes on most evenings.
From Zhongdian, drive south several hours through spectacular scenery towards Lijiang.
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Lijiang
Check in to the luxurious Banyan Tree Lijiang, where each villa is designed in the style of a traditional Naxi house.
Stop for a visit and a simple lunch in Longtan Naxi village. The Naxi are descendants of Tibetan nomadic tribes and have a matriarchal society dominated by women where marriage is not widely practiced. Their language, style of dress and cuisine are distinct from both the Tibetans and the Han Chinese.
Take a drive through Lisu County, and then the land of the Yi people where horses roam freely, and wildflowers line the roadside.
Explore Lijiang’s charming Old Town, a world of narrow cobblestone streets bordering canals lined with weeping willows. Browse among the many shops for local art, crafts, and tribal clothing.
Relax with a Guishi hot stone massage from the excellent Banyan Tree spa, or indulge in a skin treatment using Chinese herbs to bring the various elemental essences of the body into balance.
For dinner, have a private hot pot feast served in your villa. The meal begins with a pot of simmering stock placed at the center of the dining table. A variety of savory ingredients are arranged in small bowls, and are added to the pot to cook according to your tastes. Typical accompaniments include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, noodles, and egg dumplings.
Stop into Black Dragon Pool Park, where the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Range rises majestically in the distance above a tranquil lake and pagoda.
Drive or bicycle to nearby Baisha village, where you can take a cable car up to the snow covered peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Range. Before leaving, see Impression Lijiang, acultural show demonstrating the traditions and lifestyles of the Naxi, Yi and Bai regional minorities, designed by famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
Drive to Xuehua, a delightful village of about 30 families of the Yi people. You will be greeted by a shaman of the Dongba ancient animist religion that predates Buddhism in China. You’ll also be introduced to his wife, the household chef, who will treat you an informal cooking demonstration and a delicious lunch of “Yi french fries” (pan-fried sliced potatoes) and other local specialties.
Dine in a traditional courtyard restaurant serving Yunnanese cuisine, which is marked by its light, fresh, and spicy flavors, and liberal use of herbs, mushrooms and flowers as food. You will be joined by an expert in the Dongba religion, who is himself a shaman, and a master painter and calligrapher, one of only a handful of people who can still write the traditional Naxi script.
Drive through the beautiful landscape of northern Yunnan province to Dali
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Dali
Stay at the Linden Centre in nearby Xizhou, where you can learn more about Yunnan through exploring, enrichment and volunteer activities from tea cultivation to participating on archeological digs. Stay for multiple days and absorb the fresh air and laid-back simplicity of this well-preserved Bai village.
Take a chairlift up to the Zhonghe Temple atop the snow-peaked Cangshan Mountains that border the city, and relax among the wild azaleas as you gaze down on sleepy Dali and Erhai Lake.
Bike, Drive or Boat around beautiful Erhai Lake, home to 17 villages along its coast. Take in the famous local Qing architecture, customs and shade of the beautiful Banyan trees around the lake, or visit Erhai Paradise, a haven of Buddhist demon statues, structures and an artificial beach.
Wander through the city’s quiet streets, a haven for backpackers and locals alike. Browse the many shops offering local embroidery, tie-dye and exquisite marble, known throughout China as Dali Stone.
For the more adventurous, take a bike tour into the beautiful landscape surrounding the city, or choose from a number of rock climbing excursions that offer beautiful vistas of the city and lake.
Visit the “Three Pagodas,” which are probably Dali’s most famous site. The three pagodas are amongst the oldest structures in southwestern China and were built in the 9th century. The middle of the three is the largest pagoda, around 71 meters (233 feet) tall, flanked by the two others at 41 meters (135 feet) tall each.
Fly to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and the cradle of Chinese civilization.
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Chengdu
Check into the Shangri-La Chengdu, located in the heart of the city and home to a number of Asian and Western restaurants and bars. Relax at the spa with treatments based on ancient Chinese principles of restoring balance and harmony to the mind and body.
Stroll along the tree-lined Chun Xi Lu Boulevard, whose tea cafés, boutiques and restaurants are frequented by the local students, professors and amblers. Feel free to join in on any hearty debates going on between students and professors, who are eager to hear your perspectives.
Visit Wenshu Monastery, an exquisite architectural site. Dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), it is one of the most active Buddhist centers in China; its sculptured roofs, colonnades, reflecting ponds and ornate, crimson buildings are a fine and increasingly rare example of classical Chinese architecture. Afterwards, enjoy a Sichuan style lunch at the temple’s vegetarian restaurant.
The Qingyang Taoist Temple is considered the birthplace of Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism. As the day winds down, relax in the tea pavilion’s bamboo chairs, sip fragrant jasmine pearl tea, and learn how to play mah jong from local experts.
Have a delicious dinner at Baguo Buyi, a rustic, open-kitchen restaurant that's a favorite of Chengdu locals. Specialties include gelatinous green turtle stewed with taro (yuer shao jiayu) and tofu cooked with golden carp (doufu jiyu).
See an abridged Sichuan Opera at the Wuhou Temple, where performances are held in the traditional courtyard setting with tea service. Different from Western (or even Peking) Opera, this local style is distinguished by elaborate acrobatic stunts, sharp wit, lively characters, and audience participation. Afterwards, meet with the performers and catch a glimpse of the usually off-limits backstage area and dressing rooms.
Visit the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center and meet privately with the scientists responsible for developing the center’s advanced panda reproduction program, which has produced more than 46 cubs in 11 litters over the past ten years. Explore the grounds, enjoy the antics of baby and adult pandas, and even have an exclusive meet and greet with a real, live panda.
Enjoy lunch in the countryside at a traditional Sichuan noodle house where the dough is swung into thin ropes and cut into strands at your table, and the broth is flavored with the spicy local Sichuan peppercorn, or “flower pepper.”
Enjoy a private culinary lesson from a master chef in how to cook and prepare local Sichuanese delicacies.
Visit the Shu Xiu Fang embroidery workshop where you learn from artisans who craft Sichuan’s legendary textiles, renowned for fine needlework, elegant colors, graceful lines, and their design in the style of traditional Chinese paintings.
Dine alongside the river at Gingko, one of the city’s most refined and sophisticated restaurants. You will have the chance to enjoy local specialties such as steamed crab with peppercorns and crispy beef tenderloin, expertly prepared and presented with care at this gourmet’s haven.
Visit the Jiuzhaigou National Park, filled with expansive lakes and waterfalls and dotted with quaint Tibetan villages and Buddhist relics. Its stunning natural vistas have earned the park a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.
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Urumqi
Meet at curator for a privately guided tour of the Urumqi History Museum, whose collection includes 3000-year-old mummies on display, and gain insight into the history of the most ancient states along the Silk Road.
Visit a local Kazak family on the outskirts of town, and join them for lunch or snacks. Have a rare chance to understand the local Hazak nomads and their changing way of life: the government is planning to force them to relocate to urban environments within five years.
Visit the south bank of Tian Chi, the Heavenly Lake, which is situated to the east of the Tianshan Mountain range (north of Bogda Peak) outside Urumqi. Cross the lake on a speedboat and take in the majestic mountains, glaciers and forests that surround it.
Browse one of the world’s most exotic consumer paradises, the Grand Bazaar, filled with items from all over Central Asia, Russia and Mongolia.
Take in the local blend of central Asian and Chinese cultures on display at the local night market. Dine in the city’s backstreets on sumptuous Uighur and Hui food such as lamb kebabs, hand-stretched noodles, or big plate chicken (dapanji) in the back streets near the large mosque, a symbol of Western China.
More adventurous travelers can hike and camp at the foot of Mount Bogda, then watch the sun rise from horseback as you ascend to 10,600 feet above sea level for a luncheon with a magnificent view of the countryside and the Heavenly Lake.
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Dunhuang
Check into the Dunhuang Silk Road Hotel, situated right in front of the spectacular Mingsha Dunes, and designed to resemble a Tang Dynasty frontier fort.
Visit the Mogao Grottoes, one of the greatest archaeological treasures in Asia. Spend the day exploring the thousand year old site with a leading art historian, and enjoy exclusive access to the 492 caves, which contain ancient manuscripts, paintings, and some of the earliest Buddhist art in China.
Visit the Dunhuang Museum to learn more about the history of the Mogao Grottoes from a local expert. View the museum’s collection of scrolls and sutras discovered in the caves.
Go sand tobogganing, paragliding or ride a camel in the Mingsha Dunes at the eastern border of the Gobi Desert. Explore Yueya Quan, a small crescent-shaped lake famous for its permanence in the desert, first recorded by travelers at least two thousand years ago.
Wander through Dunhuang’s lively night market and old town, where the food stalls and shops are open late. Vendors who often look far more Middle Eastern than Chinese cook up spicy lamb kebabs and dishes with thick, hearty noodles over open braziers.
Travel by camel caravan into the dunes of the Gobi, where you’ll enjoy a feast of local specialties as the sun sets over the desert, then settle in around a bonfire to appreciate the silence of this vast landscape and a spectacular showing of stars.
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Kunming
Visit the Flower and Bird Market for a unique shopping experience. Among the flora and fauna for sale, guests can also find many local minority souvenirs, jade, and Chinese games.
Drive to Dongchuan, home of the beautiful Red Land rice terraces: iron oxide deposits in the soil cause beautiful patches of yellow, red, green and white to grow. Imbibe the scenery as the multitudinous colors of the rice fields spread out like a palate across the horizon.
Visit the beautiful Tanhua Temple, built in 1634 and home to magnificent gardens in the traditional Chinese style brimming with the famous perennial flowers of Kunming, as well as ancient Buddhist statues and relics.
Drive 2.5 hours to the Shilin Stone Forest, a natural wonder of limestone formations as tall as 100 feet, much like a petrified forest. The park is littered with pagodas, lakes and vantage points from which to take in the scenery.
The area is inhabited by the Sani minority. A specialty of this southern tribe, which descends from the much larger Yi minority, is their hats. On women’s hats in particular, one can identify the person’s marital status.
Visit the Provincial Museum, where an expert in Yunnan’s eclectic history and peoples will guide you through the collection of ancient relics of the many ethnic minorities that populate this diverse province.
See Impression of Yunnan, a spectacular combination of song and dance that highlights various customs and celebrations of Yunnan’s many ethnic minorities.
Enjoy local Yunnanese food at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants. Specialties include over the bridge rice noodles (guoqiao mixian), steamed potted chicken and Xuanwei ham.
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Harbin
Check into the Shangri-La Harbin, located in the heart of the city and home to a number of Asian and Western restaurants and bars. Relax at the spa with treatments based on ancient Chinese principles of restoring balance and harmony to the mind and body.
Visit the Harbin International Snow and Ice Festivals, held in various locations around Harbin. Massive structures, including the Roman Coliseum and the Forbidden City, are finely crafted out of ice and snow, creating a frosty wonderland of epic proportions.
Take an early morning stroll down Center Street, the main artery of Harbin’s old city. Enjoy the beautiful early 20th century Russian architecture, a rare sight in modernizing China, and watch snowflakes glisten in the dawning light as workers clean the streets and ice sculptures of the night’s snowfall.
See the St. Sophia Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox Christian church built in 1923 that houses an architecture museum of the city of Harbin.
Walk along the frozen Songhuajiang river, pausing to enjoy the local festivities: take a horse and carriage across the river to the Ice and Snow World Festival, or for the more adventurous, a snowmobile.
Drive to the nearby Siberian Tiger Preserve, where you can see hundreds of tigers and feed them anything from meat strips to entire livestock.
Drive to nearby Yabuli Ski Resort, China’s largest ski resort and host of the 1996 Winter Asian Games. Spend the day hitting the slopes, complete with personal, enclosed chair lifts that offer caviar and champagine while you ascend the mountain.
Sample the many different culinary influences of the Dongbei reigion at one of Harbin’s most exclusive restaurants.
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Guilin
Drive to the Yulong River, a quieter tributary of the Li River, for a short, private cruise on a bamboo raft through the beautiful valleys of the Guilin area. The steep green hillsides and dramatic limestone spires that line the rivers here have inspired generations of Chinese landscape painters.
Visit one of Guilin’s most well known rock formations, Xiangbi Shan, or “Elephant Trunk Hill,” so named because of its resemblance to an elephant drinking from the adjacent Li River. Your expert guide will tell you engaging local legend that explains how this “elephant” came to reside here permanently. If you wish to climb the path to the summit of the rock, it is about 100 meters (328 feet) high.
A little ways further upstream is Fubo Shan, or “Wave-Calming Hill,” so named because this Buddha-topped rock is believed to subdue the waters that rush below it. This is another of the iconic sights in central Guilin.
After lunch, with your expert guide explore Ludi Yan, or “Reed Flute Cave,” which is situated about 5 kilometers (3 miles) northwest of the center of Guilin. One of the foremost natural wonders of Guilin, the caves consist of tunnels measuring 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter that run for roughly 500 meters (1,640 feet) through Guangming Hill. The caves derive their name from a type of reed once found growing within, which were made by local residents into flutes. Inside the caves are inscriptions dating back more than 1,000 years; in the 1940s, Guilin residents hid in the caves during the Japanese invasion of China. Today, the caves many stalactites, stalagmites and inscriptions are illuminated by lighting of various colors.
Explore Xinping, a small town on the Li river famous for its harmonious setting amidst karst pinnacles, prehistoric rock formations known throughout China for their stoic beauty. Bicycle through the village and stop at farmhouses to chat with families about their livelihood.
Visit Xiaozhai, one of a number of remote villages where the Yao minority people live. The Yao are one of 56 minority peoples recognized by the Chinese government, known for their brightly colored textiles and their musical tradition— take part in a singing ritual, watch villagers work on traditional fabrics, and see an informal cooking demonstration and a lunch of typical Yao dishes.
Check into the luxurious Li An Lodge in the remote village of Ping An: hike through the beautiful countryside, or choose to take a sedan chair to the lodge.
Take a short hour hike through the Longsheng rice terraces for an idyllic morning marveling at these agricultural feats of engineering. End your hike at a scenic ridge where you can rest your legs and enjoy a picnic lunch.
Visit a school in Huangluo village where you can play with the children and speak to their teachers about the Chinese school system. Learn more about rural life in China through the eyes of the Zhuang minority, the largest ethnic minority in China with a population approaching 16 million, or roughly that of Australia.
Bike or Motorcycle through the scenic countryside, with optional rock climbing on the province’s iconic karst or spelunking through networks of underground caves for the more adventurous.
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