Dzień wycieczki 357

LIJIANG-ZHONGDIAN (B/L/-)

Buffet breakfast at hotel. We drive to Zhongdian, also named Shangri-La with stops and visits to the First Bend of the Yangzi River and the Tiger Leaping Gorge on the way. The village of Stone Drum stands at the First Bend of the Yangzi River, some 70 kilometers west of Lijiang. Approaching to Stone Drum offers a dramatic view of the Yangzi's near-180-degree turn, where the wide, swift waters perform a miraculous about-face. For nearly 20 kilometers the river, first flowing south, then north, runs parallel to itself. Locals say if it were not for their village standing guard at the bend, China would lose the water of the Yangzi to Southeast Asia, like that of the adjacent Mekong and Salween Rivers. The Tiger Leaping Gorge, or Hutiaoxia in Chinese, is the Yangzi's best-known gorge after the Three Gorges in Sichuan and Hubei. Wedged tightly between titanic cliffs, the river is so narrow here, as legend tells us, that a hunted tiger made his escape to the other side in a single bound. Here, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains and the Haba Snow Mountains lean close to each other and a large volume of torrent moving between them cutting deeper and deeper into the bottom of the gorge. In some places there is a drop of 3,000 meters to the water. Arrive Zhongdian in the late afternoon, check in the hotel.
Lunch at local Chinese restaurant, dinner at leisure.