Seeing China from a local tour perspective

June 2024

In March 2024 we revisited the Yunnan province of China. This time instead of visiting the Rice Terraces we went to Shangri- la. The tour started at Kunming, then onto Dali, Lijiang, and finally Shangri-la.

Along the way we stopped at all the major sites. These included Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yulong snow mountain, Lugu Lake, Potatso National Park and meeting the Mosul people.

The tour company provided excellent service and overall the standard of accommodation was very good. Unfortunately because I don’t speak any chinese and had a bad cold I didn’t appreciate all the places we visited. Also like a lot of “pack in as much as you can tours” it tends to be the greatest hits attractions. And because its the greatest hits, it was like a rock concert with lots crowds. Imagine trying to see Mt Cook from Peters lookout where there were bus queues, and people queues all trying to get to the front facing Lake Pukaki. That sums up my impressions of any guided tour in China. Local Tourism is so popular now, post covid. As mentioned in previous blogs , its not the destination but the journey that is rewarding. Unfortunately because we were on a speeding bus with a dead line there were very limited photo opportunity stops, just for toilet stops. Fortunately they were biologically timed to suit an old man like me.

I chose to sit at the back of the bus where I could open the windows and dash from the left to right side depending on the orientation of the bus. I had on my 35mm lens and shooting at 1/1000 sec at the moving target. At least the bus provided a higher shooting angle than being a pedestrian. I photographed a lot of tree trunks and power poles as well!

However the tour achieved our main objective and that was to have a quick look at places we would like to revisit on our own.