Your guide will sign your name and meet you at your hotel lobby at 09:00am then transfer to Shibaoshan Mountain and need 2hrs driving, 120KM.

At Shibaoshan mountain, you can visit the Shibao Shan rock carvings and Baoxiang Temple. The Shibao Shan rock carvings are over 1300 years old and evidence of the spread of Mahayana Buddhism into Yunnan from Tibet. Representations of the bodhisattva Guanyin and other Buddhist images are carved into the rocky mountainside. Spend a day at the grottoes or just hike around the temples through the lush forest — perhaps you will be lucky enough to come across a group of monkeys.

Next, go to the Shaxi old town and walk around the Shaxi Old Town, stage in the quare and some ancient coutyards with local people. Shaxi once played an important role as a bustling trade station on the Tea and Horse Caravan Road, an important branch of the Silk Road. Just over one thousand years ago, this ancient trade route connected Tibet with Eastern China. In exchange for teas from Yunnan, Tibetans traded their famous breed of horse to Song Dynasty officials in eastern China, who were busy defending their territory from invaders from the north. Thus the Tea and Horse Caravan was born. Shaxi became the main trade station along this route. Though today Tibet and China don’t trade along this route, Shaxi still has that border-town feel. Old cobble-stoned alleyways still look like they did a thousand years ago. And different minorities, including the Yi and Bai, still clash every Friday during the Sideng Market when mountain villagers come down from the hills to trade their goods.