17-day Golden China & Silk Road Xinjiang Tour

Day 1Arrival in Shanghai

When your flight lands in Shanghai airport, your local guide use a placard with your name to meet you at the exit and transfer to your hotel. Free at leisure for the rest of the day.

Day 2Shanghai

After breakfast, you will start a full day tour in Shanghai to visit the Yu Garden, Shanghai Museum, Town God's Temple, Shikumen, Old Concession Area. Then you will have a bird view of Shanghai city on the top of Jinmao Tower and enjoy coastal sight at the Bund of Shanghai. Then enjoy evening relax on Nanjing Road.

Acrobatic performance for night show option.

Day 3Shanghai/Guilin

After breakfast, you will be escorted to the airport for your flight to Guilin. Upon your arrival in Guilin, the most scenic city in China, your local guide will meet you and escort you to visit Elepant Trunk Hilll and Reed Flute Cave.

Day 4Guilin/Yangshuo

After breakfast at the hotel, our guide and driver will transfer you to the Zhujiang pier to board the ship for Li River cruise (4 hours) from Guilin to Yangshuo. It is one of the great waterways to admire the picturesque scenery along the river sides. Upon arrival at Yangshuo, you will have a stroll along the famous West Street. This is a vibrant place alive with cafes, pubs, restaurants and where many westerners gather.

Tips: Today we kindly suggest you have a larger breakfast at the hotel this morning as the lunch provided on the cruise is less than adequate. The cruise arrives at terminal Yangshuo at around 13:30 to 14:30 according to the different water flows. There are many cafes available in Yangshuo.

Optional activites for late afternoon:
1. Attend a Chinese cooking course in a cooking school
2. Learn Taichi for 1-2 hours.
3. Li River Beer Fish is recommended for dinner.
4. Night show options: Commorants Fishing or Impression Liu Sanjie

A cruise along the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo is an unforgettable experience for stunning scenery. In Yangshuao, there's something interesting such as lumbering water buffaloes pulling carts or cooling off in the river, fishermen gliding along on their narrow bamboo rafts, and if you're very lucky you might see one of the famous fishing cormorants.

Impressions of Liusanjie performance. The Performance, directed by Zhang Yimou, China's premiere movie director and director of the Beijing Olympics' Opening Ceremony, is made up of hundreds of people and is performed on the Li River with the mountains as the backdrop. It is an unforgettable experience.

Day 5Guilin/Xian

There are three options for morning enjoyment: Enjoy a countryside biking, a bamboo rafting on the Yulong River and a helicopter tour over Yangshuo.

An afternoon drive back to Guilin for the afternoon flight to Xi'an.

Day 6Xian

After breakfast at your hotel, your guide will meet you and you will be driven to visit the incredible Terracotta Warriors. Go on to visit the Daqin terra-cotta making factory see all kinds of models of Terracotta Warriors. After lunch you will be driven to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, where housed in a huge temple complex, the ancient pagoda was built to house Buddhist Sutras brought to China from India.

Option: In the evening you may choose to enjoy an Chinese Dumplings Feast and amazing Tang Dynasty Show, which bring the pageantry and music of the ancient Tang Dynasty to life.

Day 7Xian/Lanzhou

After breakfast, your guide will meet you and you will be driven for a morning visit to the Shaanxi History Museum to discover Xian's amazing history. After that you will go on a walk or a biking on the top of Ancient City Wall to get a bird's eye view of this ancient capital. Then visit Xi'an Muslim Street for a relax.

In the late afternoon you will be driven to the station for afternoon bullet (3 hours) to Lanzhou. Upon your arrival in Lanzhou, your guide will meet you and escort you to check in hotel for a rest.

Day 8Lanzhou/Xiahe

After breakfast you go ahead to Xiahe visit the Labrang Monastery for Tibetan Buddhist culture at the foot of the Phoenix Mountain northwest of Xiahe County in Gannan Tibetan Nationality Autonomous Prefecture. Songke Grassland is a vast expanse of grassy plains where 4,000 Tibetan nomads, all wrapped up in their many, dirty layers, who graze yak herds and offer tourists the chance of a ride upon their horses.

Day 9Xiahe/Lanzhou/Jiayuguan

In the morning you will be transferred back to Lanzhou for Boat Cruise from Liujiaxia Gorge to Binglingsi Thousand Buddha Caves, a ancient cave started to be built by some Buddhist monks from as early as the West Jin Dynasty (265-316) with 183 caves existing with 694 stone statues, 82 earth statues and murals of 900 square meters (9, 688 square feet). Then be transferred to the railway station to catch the train to Jiayuguan.

Day 10Jiayuguan/Dunhuang

Morning visit to the Jiayuguan Pass, a part of The Great Wall of China in Northwest. It is an important ancient border fort with Suspended Wall extented towards the north, an integral part of the defense system. Moreover a first museum to exhibit the Great Wall culture in a comprehensive and systematic way is found there. After a view for Yulin Grattoes and head to Dunhuang.

Day 11Dunhuang/Turpan

After breakfast you will go to visit the Mogao Grottoes, a world's famous shrine of Buddhist art treasures, 25 km (15.5miles) from downtown Dunhuang on the eastern slope of Mingsha Shan (Mount Echoing Sand). Then enjoy the desert fun around Crescent Lake. Then you will be transferred to the railway station to catch the train to Turpan.

Day 12Turpan

After checking in hotel, you will orderly visit Jiaohe Ancient City, a famous ancient kingdom ruin along the Silk Route; Astana Tombs Museum houses historical Chinese documents, textiles, epitaphs, coins, clay sculptures, pottery, wooden wares, silk-paintings, crops and more. View more than 40 caves, there are 10 preserving murals in Tuyoq Valley. Lastly, you will hear of the lengend of Journey to the West at The Flaming Mountain.

Day 13Turpan/Urumqi

After breakfast you wil visit Karez Well, a unique underground irrigation system with four parts: vertical wells, underground channels, ground canals and small reservoirs in Turpan for farmland. Sugong Minaret was an embodiment of the ancient architectural arts of the Uygur nationality and built in the 41st year of the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. Then proceed to Urumqi.

Day 14Urumqi/Beijing

In the morning after breakfast in your hotel, you will be driven to to visit the Xinjiang Regional Museum, displaying artifacts from the Silk Road and Xinjiang's Ethnic Minority Groups. You will then be driven to the Great Bazaar in Er Daoqiao Market. The bazaar never fails to surprise visitors with the uncountable number of things available. After lunch, take the afternoon flight to B

Day 15Beijing

Today's tour begins to visit the Tiananmen Square, the world's largest plaza. Walking through Tiananmen Gate, you'll enter the splendid Forbidden City, China's No.1 palace complex adorned with imperial treasures. Then see the The Temple of Heaven.

Late in the afternoon, you'll take a lifetime rickshaw tour the ancient alleyway of Hutongs life that are still keeping the original layout in the Shichahai area. You'll stop by a Siheyuan local family and experience what their life is like. Dinner will be arranged at a local family, and you can learn to cook some Chinese dumplings if you like.

Day 16Beijing

After breakfast, you will pay a morning visit to the world's greatest man-made projects, the Great Wall at Mutianyu section, set up as a military fortification more than 2,000 years ago. Then vist the Sacred Road of Ming Tombs and Dingling, an ancient emperor's mausoleum group of the Ming Dynasty with underground palace.

On the way back to Beijing downtown, you will have a stop for an outside look of two famous Olimpic site: Bird Nest (National Stadium) and Water Cube (National Aquatics Center).

Day 17Beijing/Departure

Transfer to the airport and take a flight to your next destination.


Service Ends