China Day 10 - 纳帕海, 普达措国家公园 (香格里拉)

26 May - 香格里拉, located at an average altitude of 3200m is considered a high altitude city which puts you at risk of catching altitude sickness. General advice is to spend a few days at a lower-altitude city (like Lijiang at 2400 meters) before heading to Shangri-La to let your body acclimatize. Golden rule is to go slow in whatever you do, no strenuous activities and always equipped with an oxygen canister which will help to increase your blood oxygen content and relief some altitude sickness symptoms. 

For today, our group plan is to visit 纳帕海 in the morning followed by 普达措国家公园 in the afternoon. As the rainy season has not arrived yet, the grassland in 纳帕海 is still not flooded. Basically we just see a normal grassland with horses for tourist riding. Going in the morning has its merits as we have the 大经幡 wholly for ourselves.

纳帕海 grassland un-flooded yet (no "sea") as rainy season is only due next month

纳帕海大经幡

After we are done with the photos, we moved on to 普达措国家公园. There are 3 sections which we can visit today, namely 悠幽步道, 属都湖 and 碧塔海. In order to travel from sections to sections, we can only take their designated sightseeing buses. For 悠幽步道, they will ceased stopping at this point after 3.30pm. To walk through the whole 悠幽步道, we took around 2 hours, though we can finished earlier if not for the photo taking sessions. For the 步道, nothing extraordinary except to enjoy the nature and the animals. Flowers might be in bloom later in the months, but now (end May) is not their season yet.

First stop: 悠幽步道

Black Tibetan pigs

Ancient trees that has lived 300 - 400 years

属都湖

Blossoming flowers @ 属都湖

As there is not much time left, we decided to skip 碧塔海 and headed back to our hotel to search for our dinner (王宝器麻椒鱼). Tasty for the first 60mins, but get quite sick of it after a while.

China Day 9 - 虎跳峡，白水台 (香格里拉)

25 May - As we depart 丽江 and move to 香格里拉, we booked a driver for this journey, dropping by 虎跳峡 and 白水台 along the way. It was a pretty scenic drive, with beautiful mountains, raging river and beautiful white terraces. What an amazing work that God has created!

Scenic drive and good weather all the way to 香格里拉

虎跳峡

The raging 金沙江, a primary tributary of the upper Yangtze River at 虎跳峡

Scenic view at 栖崖·雪山悬崖咖啡餐厅 where we have our lunch

东巴圣地白水台

龙潭湖公园 @ 香格里拉

China Day 8 - 玉龙雪山风景区 (丽江)

24 May - Today is the highlight of the trip, going up to the highest point we ever reached in our entire life, 玉龙雪山观景台 at 4506m. As I still have not recovered from my bout of cough, I gave up climbing to another higher platform at 4608m. To start the day, we woke up super early at 5am just to catch the 日照金山 view. Before that, we listened in to a safety briefing on 高反 as the cable car that is going to bring all of us up will be ascending 1000m in 10mins. Pretty much a high risk event that most people will experience some sort of discomfort. To lower the risk, they recommended some 中药 mixture that will help elevate the oxygen content in the blood so that the risk of 高反 is lowered. Well, health is more important, so we just buy the mixture and drink, especially we just saw a news that a Malaysia tourist died after visiting 玉龙雪山 a few weeks before this trip. To prepare for ascending 玉龙雪山, a common advice widely circulated is not to wash your hair 1 day before and after as washing hair might increase blood circulation and make the 高反 worse.

日照金山 - Too bad the mountain top is hidden behind the clouds

Another view of 玉龙雪山, which is still hidden behind the clouds

白水台 which is not very white

玉液湖

蓝月谷

玉龙雪山观景台 @ 4506m

After 1 hour on top of the mountain, I began to feel the effect of 高反 (headache) and quickly descend down the mountain. Next up, we catch the Lijiang Impression that is directed by 张艺谋.

Hmm. truthfully speaking, the Lijiang Impression is not very impressive to me

China Day 7 - 白沙古镇， 束河古镇 (丽江)

23 May - After we are done with 丽江古城 last night, we started the day with 白沙古镇 and later 束河古镇 mainly for 打卡 and touring the old towns. 白沙古镇坐落于玉龙雪山脚下，拥有观赏雪山绝佳的无遮挡视野, 同时也保留了纳西族原汁原味古都的风貌.

Viewing 玉龙雪山 @ 白沙书局

After we are satisfied with the photos, we moved on to 束河古镇, another 打卡点 with 玉龙雪山 as the background.

青龙桥

恋人桥

China Day 6 - 丽江古城 (丽江)

22 May - Today we bid farewell to 大理 and proceed to take a train to our next destination 丽江. As usual, 2nd class seating means we need to rush to secure the limited luggage space on train. After 2 hours journey, we arrived at 丽江, 2400m above sea level, which is 400m higher than 大理.

Leaving 大理, reaching station 1 hour before departure

Our hotel room @ 丽江古城万豪万枫酒店

After check in, we hit the nearby 丽江古城 and started exploring this beautiful ancient town.

The iconic 丽江古城大水车

丽江古城四方街 (Town Center)

丽江之眼 (Highest point of city)

大石桥

Mushroom hotpot for dinner @ 观雪.阅古楼

Nice view overlooking the 古城, further away if the sky is clear, you can see 玉龙雪山