From China’s Magnolia Mountains to the Lush Tropical Forests of Laos | Group Trip 2027

Day 1: Arrival in Kumning 

Our journey begins today in Kunming, capital of China’s Yunnan Province. Sitting at nearly 2000 metres on the edge of a limpid green lake, the City of Eternal Spring as it is known in China, is famous for its balmy climate and its huge flower market which is the biggest in Asia.

After unwinding and checking in we ease into our journey with a gentle walk through the thousand-year old city centre. It’s a lovely place. Cobblestone alleys lined with ancient timber-frame shops squeeze between glittering modern skyscrapers. The scents of golden tea, jasmine and sizzling street food waft from stalls and tea houses. At night, the streets are lit with the lambent glow of Chinese and locals gather after work to chat streetside over steaming small-pot rice noodles or delicate papaya desserts.

Location: Kunming | Hotel: A Tour Kunming

Day 2: The Stone Forest

Today we visit the first of our Yunnanese natural marvels: the Naigu Stone forest. It is an extraordinary place – with near vertical clusters of pinnacle peaks looking rising into the blue sky like in shards and towers of stone. The park is part of the UNESCO-protected Shilin (Stone Forest) Geopark.

In the afternoon we head to the first of our indigenous villages. Yunnan is home to twenty-five distinct tribal groups, each with their own traditions, dress, food and religious beliefs. The Nine-hundred year old Nuohai Yi Village which we visit is built entirely out of the local karst limestone, making it a living extension of the region’s Stone Forest itself.

Location: Jianshui | Hotel: Jianshui Manxin

Day 3: Qing Dynasty Jianshui

Jianshui is a treasure – an almost perfectly preserved Ming and Qing Dynasty town, replete with Buddhist temples, huge fortified city mandarin’s palaces and residential quarters.

We will have a guided visit to the best of the town, take a winding narrow-gauge mountain train and visit the famous Double Dragon Bridge, whose seventeen arches span the Lujiang River and which echoes the famous bridge in Beijing’s Summer Palace, destroyed by the Europeans in the Nineteenth Century.

Location: Kunming | Hotel: A Tour Kunming

Day 4: Tea Cities & Himalayan Lakes

This morning we take one of China’s hi-tech bullet trains to Dali and the glittering Erhai high mountain lake.

Dali’s setting is extraordinary – its intricate turquoise pagodas and palaces nestle on the shore of a vast sapphire-blue alpine lake. The snow-swathed, razor-sharp ridges of the 4,000-metre Cangshan Mountain range loom over the water. The city is almost entirely made up of indigenous Bai people, famous throughout China for their exquisitely carved wooden buildings – with elaborate eaves and ‘shining’ screen walls placed in courtyards to catch and reflect natural afternoon sunlight back into the home. They have a millennia old textile tradition.

Dali was an key city on the Tea Horse Caravan Road – the counterpart to the Silk Road. We will also visit a traditional Bai village today and take an excursion to Xiaoputuo island in the lake.

Location: Dali | Hotel: Dali Ancient City

Day 5: Temples & Indigenous Textile villages

This morning we visit one of China’s most famous temples, the Three Pagoda temple of Chongsheng.

Chongshen is one of the oldest and most grand Buddhist monuments in Southern China, with three enormous pagodas built 500 years before the great cathedrals of Europe laid out in a perfect equilateral triangle and standing over a complex of exquisitely carved temple halls and pavilions.

The engineering is remarkable. According to Ming dynasty chronicles, a powerful Earthquake split the main pagoda in two, only for an aftershock ten days later to seal the two halves back together, healing the crack. During another devastating 1925 earthquake that flattened 99% of Dali’s homes, the pagodas once again survived untouched.

In the afternoon we will visit a string of Bai villages where you will have the chance to try your hand at making textiles using traditional Bai methods.

Location: Dali | Hotel: Dali Ancient City

Day 6: The Tea Road Villages

Today we explore the villages of the Tea Road, the far less known counterpart to the Silk Road. We will see Shibaoshan, where a temple was built into a vast cavern in the side of a cliff.

And we will visit Shaxi, the last remaining, completely intact market town on the Ancient Tea Horse Caravan Road, crossing the lovely crescent-shaped Yujin Bridge which has served as the literal gateway to Shaxi since the early Qing Dynasty.

Location: Shaxi | Hotel: Shaxi Landscape

Day 7: Jade Snow Mountain & Lijiang old town

Today we wander the gorgeous streets of old Shuhe, a village cut by intricate canals that spill into pools and little lakes. The loveliest, the Black Dragon pool looks like a scene from a Chinese movie – a perfect aquamarine pagoda set against the craggy mass of looming Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Location: Lijiang | Hotel: Mercure Lijiang Old Town

Day 8: Hill Tribe heartland

Today we spend time with Naxi tribal people, whose culture and customs are completely different from those of mainstream China. The Naxi use the last surviving purely pictographic writing system in the world – with thousands of intricate, stylized drawings of animals, spirits, and nature. Their traditional spiritual priests (or Dongba masters) can still read and write the ancient manuscripts, which are protected on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register. Naxi homes, dress and customs are unique and we will have a chance to learn about them when we visit a Naxi village home.

Location: Lijiang | Hotel: Mercure Lijiang Old Town

Day 9: Shangri La & Tiger Leaping Gorge

This morning we get into the heart of nature, with an easy hike along Tiger-Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest mountain valleys on Earth. The gorge was etched from the Himalayas by the turbid Jinsha, the main tributary of the Yangtze the longest river in Asia.

We will then visit the Songzanlin Tibetan Monastery: the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, often called the Little Potala Palace and visit the largest and best-preserved Tibetan town on the ancient

Tea-Horse Road. The entire region is now officially known as Shangri La as it was the inspiration for the mythical valley in James Hilton’s famous novel, Lost Horizon.

Location: Shangri-la | Hotel: Shangri La Dukezon

Day 10: Wild Shangri La – Pudacuo National Park

We have the entire day in Pudacuo National Park, one of the great biodiversity hotspots on Earth.

Puducuo is a pristine alpine sanctuary protecting some 1,300 square kilometres of wetland meadows, old-growth forests (with 20 distinct native species of rhododendrons that grow into massive, gnarled woody trees) and a third of all China’s bird and mammal species. These include yaks, leopard Cats, Asiatic Black Bears, Tibetan Long-Haired Squirrels and Black Necked Cranes and Critically Endangered, Yunnan Snub-nosed Monkeys who live at the highest altitude of any non-human primate on Earth.

Puducuo’s landscapes are a breathtaking combination of mirror-like alpine peat lakes, alpine meadows, vast forests and Tibetan plateaux. We will see them at their most beautiful, as the trees burst into brilliant colour. In the evening we transfer back to Kunming on the bullet train.

Location: Kunming | Hotel: A Tour Kunming

Day 11: Welcome to Laos!

Today we transfer by train into Laos where we are met at the border in Boten by our Laos team. This is where we exit the train with our luggage to clear Laotian customs and immigration after having cleared Chinese customs just a few minutes prior at Mohan Station. The procedure is straightforward.

We leave the railway at Muang Xay Station, where we transfer to a vehicle for our first Laos destination, Luang Namtha, Laos’s forest treasure.

Location: Luang Namtha | Hotel: Pou Villa

Day 12: Rainforest hike

Today we take a hike into the old-growth rainforest of the Nam Ha National Bio-Diversity Conservation Area. We hike steep mountain trails under giant tree canopies, learning to spot medicinal herbs, wild cardamoms, and edible plants and looking out for endangered Black Cheeked Gibbons, Silver Pheasants, Hornbills and Dhole.

The are lies at the heart of the Khmu Indigenous areas, and we stop for a traditional Khmu-style bushcraft picnic lunch and our guides cut fresh wild banana leaves as tablecloths and use machetes to fashion cooking tubes, spoons, and cups entirely out of raw bamboo stalks.

For those who do not wish to hike, we provide a driven excursion to a Khmu Village.

Location: Luang Namtha | Hotel: Pou Villa

Day 13: The Serene Valley

After breakfast we transfer to Nong Khiaw village, a scenic journey through the heart of northern Laos. The road winds over ridges and down through plunging forested valleys. It’s an untouristy area. There are breathtaking views of the Nam Ou River along the way and we get a real sense of rural life in the traditional Lao villages we pass through.

Nong Khiaw village is one of Southeast Asia’s great, treasures, set on the banks of the Nam Ou River and surrounded by towering limestone cliffs it oozes unspoilt, natural tranquillity. It’s a perfect spot for relaxation and adventure, with opportunities for hiking, boat trips, and exploring nearby caves.

For those who do not wish to hike, we provide a driven excursion to a Khmu Village.

Location: Nong Khiaw | Hotel: Nongkhiaw Riverside

Day 14: Nong Khiaw

This morning we rise early for stunning hike in the hills around Nong Khiaw to one of the most beautiful viewpoints in mainland Southeast Asia. As the sun rises over the mountains it glistens off the Nam Ou river and the roofs tiny temples, far below at our feet. Mist rises from the valleys and forest on the ridges all around, lit with buttery morning light comes to life. We then return to the hotel for breakfast.

We then climb aboard a teak wood long boat for a cruise along the peaceful Nam Ou River on our way to Muang Ngoi, watching locals swim and play in the river around the hamlets that line the route, buffaloes graze on water meadows and life seems much as it has been for centuries.

Location: Nong Khiaw | Hotel: Nongkhiaw Riverside

Day 15: Luang Prabang

Today we take a boat along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Nam Ou river to Pak Ou village where we take lunch before heading on by road to the old imperial city of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

After checking in, guests have the option, time permitting before dinner, to wander the streets of this lovely small city, which is only as large as a small European town. The low-key centre is lined with old teak wood mansions and French town houses, set alongside the old royal palace and myriad temples covered with elaborate carving and made in the unique Lao style. There’s a night market and dozens of craft shops where beautiful, intricate hill tribe textiles, indigo and silk scarves and sarongs, silverware and art are available for sale. It’s one of the best spots on our journey to pick up souvenirs. If time permits, you can climb to the top of Phousi hill for one of the loveliest sunset views in Laos: of the day darkening over the terracotta and teak buildings and the sun sinking over the Mekong and the rolling mountain ridges.

In the evening we will have dinner at a local restaurant and a Baci ceremony, also known as Soukhouan, a traditional Lao ritual that is deeply rooted in the country’s culture and spiritual beliefs. It is performed to celebrate important events and occasions such as weddings, births, homecomings, and other significant milestones and will be held in your honour to welcome you to the royal capital.

Location: Luang Prabang | Hotel: Le Bel Air

Deluxe

Laos

Le Bel Air Resort

Le Bel Air Resort

Day 16: Luang Prabang

We rise early this morning to see the centuries-old Buddhist alms giving ceremony in the old historic centre.

Indochina’s history has been shaped by the production of rice. And you will learn how, first hand today when we visit a community-run organic farm supplying fresh vegetables, herbs, salads and rice to hotels and restaurants in Luang Prabang. The farmers here use methods which are millennia old.

You will have a taste of ancient Southeast Asian rural life – participating in the various stages of rice cultivation, from planting to harvesting. You’ll gain insight into the life of local farmers and understand the importance of rice in Lao culture.

The farm is in a gorgeous setting – surrounded by tropical greenery and rugged mountains, with paddy fields all around. It’s a wonderful way to connect with nature and appreciate the hard work that goes into producing the Mekong’s staple food.

In the afternoon we drive through the countryside to the Kuang Si Waterfalls, which drop in tiers in lush rainforest. We will have time at leisure here (and to visit the Sun Bear rescue and rehabilitation centre on site), and Alex is on hand to help you with your photo skills. We take lunch at the waterfalls and on the way back to Luang Prabang stop at a Hmong village and learn about the traditional music, textiles and daily life of a people who helped to shape modern Laos, and who are one of the great forgotten ethnic groups of Southeast Asia.

Location: Luang Prabang | Hotel: Le Bel Air

Deluxe

Laos

Le Bel Air Resort

Le Bel Air Resort

Day 17: Luang Prabang

This morning we take a half-day cruise up the Mekong to the caves at Pak Ou Buddha caves – cut into a sheer cliff on the banks of the Mekong.

Our boats are agile, secure and beautiful. No vessel gives you more of a sense of the Mekong and the movement and power of this magnificent river. And no Mekong boats are safer – these long boats have been honed over centuries of boat construction – they are unique to the Mekong and built to navigate the strong current, narrow water and fast water in both in dry and raining season.

From the moment we leave, you are immersed in the beautiful landscapes of the Upper Mekong.

In the evening we have our farewell meal in Luang Prabang.

Location: Luang Prabang | Hotel: Le Bel Air

Deluxe

Laos

Le Bel Air Resort

Le Bel Air Resort

Day 18: Departure

Transfer to Vientiane for your flight home, or extend your trip at your leisure.