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Silk Route In-depth Tour 20 days
The following itinerary and quotation is still available in 2009. Destinations:Beijing - Xian - Lanzhou - Xiahe - Wuwei - Lanzhou - Zhangye - Jiayuguan - Dunhuang -Turpan - Urumqi - Shanghai
Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Beijing
Welcome to China. Upon arrival, our local guide will take you to your downtown hotel. The rest of the day is on your own to explore the city.
Day 2: Beijing (B+L+D)
Sightseeing: Tiananmen Square / Forbidden City / Temple of Heaven / Peking Duck Dinner
Today you will visit the Tiananmen Square which is considered as the largest square of the world. Subsequently, you visit the Forbidden City, the most complete imperial palace in China. And later you will also pay a visit to the Temple of Heaven. Temple of Heaven was built in the year 1420 and symbolized the meaning that the emperor can contact with the sky through it.
Tonight, enjoy a Peking Duck Dinner in a famous restaurant.
Day 3: Beijing (B+L)
Sightseeing: Badaling Great Wall / Spirit Way / Ming Tomb
After breakfast, you will visit the Badaling Great Wall where you will experience at first hand the wonder of the Great Wall. For lunch you'll sample some delicious fare in a local restaurant. Afterwards, take a short drive to visit the Spirit Way and one of Ming Tombs. Spirit Way is an impressive marble archway as well as the entrance to the Ming Tombs equipped with many animals and people statues on the left and on the right of the avenue.
Ming Tombs are the representative royal tombs of the Ming Dynasty tombs. 13 emperors of the Ming dynasty from 1368 to 1644 were buried there.
Day 4: Beijing –Xian by air (B+L)
Sightseeing: Summer Palace / Lama Temple
Today you will start the day with a trip to the Summer Palace, which has a history of over 800 years. All the man-made hills, halls, pavilions and temples, including Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill, blend together harmoniously in spite of their individual styles. After lunch, you will also pay a visit to the Lama Temple. It is a typical Tibetan Monastery in Beijing and reveals various architectural styles from Han, Mongolia, Manchuria and Tibet, and the impressive 60-foot Maitreya Buddha, carved form a single sandalwood tree. After visiting Lama Temple, you will make a beeline for the airport to take a flight to Xian and transfer to the downtown hotel.
Day 5: Xian (B+L)
Sightseeing: Terra Cotta Soldiers Museum / Bell Tower / Big Wild Goose Pagoda
Today you will visit what has been called the 8th Wonder of the World the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. It is one of the most important archaeological excavations and culture findings in the 20th century. After lunch, you will drive back to downtown city to visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is one of symbols in Xian and a remarkable milestone of the Chinese architecture. Afterward, you will head to visit Bell Tower. Originally built in 1348, the Bell Tower in Xian is situated in the very heart of the city and is the most well-preserved and best-known one in China.
Day 6: Xian - Lanzhou (B+L)
Sightseeing: Provincial History Museum / City Wall
Starting the day early, you visit the Provincial History Museum, which houses a large collection of historic and cultural artifacts unearthed in Shaanxi Province. Later you mount the City Wall. It was restored in the Ming dynasty and is considered as the largest and most intact Ming Dynasty castle in the world. From there you can have a good view of Xian. In the mid-afternoon, you will take a flight to Lanzhou and transfer to the hotel. The evening is on your own to explore the city.
Day 7: Lanzhou (B+L)
Sightseeing: Bingling Thousand Buddha Caves / Liujiaxia Reservoir
You spend the day at Bingling Thousand Buddha Caves. There are 183 caves existing with 694 stone statues, 82 earth statues and murals of 900 square meters (9, 688 square feet).
On the way to Bingling Caves, there is a beautiful Liujiaxia Reservoir, where the crystal water lying among the yellow earth mountains is quite a sight.
Day 8: Lanzhou – Xiahe by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Sangke Grassland
Get up early in the morning and drive about 280km to Xiahe County and check in at the hotel. Then you will visit the Sangke Grassland, an ideal natural rangeland. The rest of the day is on your own to explore the county.
Day 9: Xiahe – Lanzhou by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Labrang Monastery
You spend the morning visiting the famous Labrang Monastery, which is one of the six largest monasteries of the Yellow Sect of the Lamaism. After lunch, you will drive back to Lanzhou.
Day 10: Lanzhou - Wuwei by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Han Tombs
In the morning, you will spend about 4 hours on van driving into Wuwei. Then you will pay a visit to the Han Tombs, which is situated in Leitai Park. There are 231 cultural relics and 99 bronze chariots with honored guards of tomb figure unearthed from this tomb. The most important find was the Bronze Galloping Horse, also named the "horse with hoof on a swallow", which is 35 centimeters high and 45 centimeters long, weighing 7 kilograms.
Day 11: Wuwei - Zhangye by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Giant Buddha Temple / Wooden Tower of Sui Dynasty / Bell Tower / Drum Tower
Get up early in the morning and drive about 235km to Zhangye. Then you will spend the half day touring around the city, including visits to the Giant Buddha Temple and the Wooden Tower of Sui Dynasty, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. The Giant Buddha Temple is the largest architectural relic in Gansu Province of the Western Xia (1038-1227) period. China's largest reclining Buddha is well preserved in this temple.
Day 12: Zhangye - Jiayuguan by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Jiayuguan Pass / Overhanging Great Wall
After breakfast, you will drive three hours to Jiayuguan, a pass of strategic importance in the Ancient Silk Road which is located in northwestern part of Gansu Province.
Upon arrival in Jiayuguan, you will visit Jiayuguan Pass, the last fortress at the west end of the Ming Great Wall. Then you will also pay a visit to the Overhanging Great Wall, which functioned as an additional military defense for the fort.
Day 13: Jiayuguan - Dunhuang by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Echoing-Sand Mountain / Crescent-Moon Spring
In the morning, you will drive about 385km to Dunhuang, an important strategic point on the Silk Road. Then you will visit the Echoing-Sand Mountain (Mingshashan), one of the wonders in Dunhuang City. When tourists climb up or slide down the mountain, the rolling sands make different sounds, some like orchestral music, and others like thunder. Afterwards, you will also pay a visit to the Crescent-Moon Spring (Yueya Spring), near the Echoing-Sand Mountain. It is 100 meters in height, 25 meters in width, and in the shape of a crescent moon. The area is often hit by windstorm, which drives up sand to shut out sun-light. However, Crescent-Moon Spring has never been filled up with or covered by sand.
Day 14: Dunhuang - Turpan by train (B+L+D)
Sightseeing: Mogao Grottoes / White Horse Pagoda
You morning tour features the Mogao Grottoes. Praised as "a glittering pearl that adorns the Silk Road", Mogao Grottoes are the most famous grottoes in China. Then you visit White Horse Pagoda, the first Buddhist temple in China. White Horse Pagoda was built in order to pay their respect to those monks who had dedicated their life to the spreading of Buddhism.
After dinner, you will drive to the train station to take an overnight soft sleeper train to Turpan.
Day 15: Turpan (B+L)
Sightaeeing: Jiaohe Ruins / Karez Well / Emin Minaret
Upon arrival in Turpan in the morning, you are picked up by our guide and transferred to the hotel. Then you will start the day with a visit to the Jiaohe Ruins, the best preserved town ruin in China initially built about 2000 years ago. In the ruin, there are 1389 residential house ruins, 53 Buddhism temples, 316 ancient wells and 34 alleys. Afterwards, you will also pay a visit to the Karez Well. The Karez well is an underground irrigation system that was installed 2,000 years ago. There are over 1000 Karez wells in the Turpan depression, the total length of which would exceed that of Yangtze River, the longest river in China. Then you proceed to the Emin Minaret (Sugong Pagoda), the largest Muslim tower in Xinjiang region.
Day 16: Turpan - Urumqi by private van (B+L)
Sightseeing: Gaochang Ruins / Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves / Flaming Hill
Today you will experience the Gaochang Ruins, the largest city ruin in west China. Built in the first century B.C., Goachang has now been reduced to impressive ruins, with the temples, pagodas and courtyards still distinguishable even though they were abandoned more than 700 years ago. Afterwards, you will visit Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves. Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves contain 67 caves, noted for their exquisite murals, which reaches up to 1,200 square meters. After lunch, you will also visit the Flaming Hill, one of the hottest places on earth. Then drive to Urumqi, the last stop on our westward journey along the Silk Road.
Day 17: Urumqi (B+L)
Sightseeing: Heavenly Lake / South Pasture / West White Poplar Gully 
Get up early in the morning and drive about 115km to Heavenly Lake (Tian Chi), which is renowned as one of the nicest tour destinations in all of China. Then you proceed to South Pasture, located at the base of the Tian Shan mountain range. The highlight of the Southern Pastures must be the West White Poplar Gully. Screened by snow-capped peaks and dotted with tall and straight dragon spruce trees, it is an ideal place to have an excursion.
Day 18: Urumqi-Shanghai by air (B+L)
Sightseeing: the Bund / Nanjing Road
You will take morning flight to Shanghai and transfer to the downtown hotel. Firstly, you will visit the Bund, where the great foreign commercial houses and banks built their imposing office buildings before 1930s. Then you will stroll along the Nanjing Road, which is considered as one of the World's Seven Great Roads in the 1930s and always mentioned in travel guides as a must see of China tour.
Day 19: Shanghai (B+L)
Sightseeing: Yu Yuan Garden / Jade Buddha Temple / Shanghai Xin Tian Di
In the morning, you visit the Yu Yuan Garden. A former private garden, called work of art, designs with different styles of the traditional Chinese horticulture art. After lunch continue to inspect the Jade Buddha Temple, which is renowned for a 2m-tall Buddha carved from a single piece of white jade, brought to China by a Burmese monk in 1822. Then you will stroll along Shanghai Xin Tian Di, which has become an urban tourist attraction that holds the historical and cultural legacies of the city.
Day 20: Shanghai – Next destination (B)
The morning is at your leisure before boarding your flight back home.
Price
| Person | 1 | 2-5 | 6-9 | |
| Price per person( USD $ ) | 5 Star | 5489 | 3110 | 2559 |
| 4 Star | 5080 | 2899 | 2355 | |
| 3 Star | 4799 | 2768 | 2218 | |
Price list
Price Includes:
a. Entrance fees to all the scenic spots as listed above in the itinerary
b. Hotel accommodations with breakfast as specified (If there is no Western breakfast available, we have to arrange Chinese one instead)
c. All meals as specified in the itinerary. B=Western or Chinese breakfast, L=Chinese lunch in a local restaurant, D=Chinese dinner in a local restaurant
d. Internal flights including taxes and fuel fee or train/bus tickets as listed in the itinerary
e. Professional local guides and drivers in each destination city
f. Private Transfers between airports, docks, hotels and scenic spots while sightseeing in each destination city by the private air conditioned car or van
g. Luggage Transfers between airports/docks and hotels
h. Arrangements for the planning, handling, operational and communication charges
i. Government taxes.
Price excludes:
a. International air and train tickets for coming to and leaving from mainland China
b. Visa fee
c. Excess Baggage Charges
d. Meals which are not specified with "B", "L" or "D".
e. Personal expenses such as drinks, laundry, tips to guides or drivers, FAX, telephone, excess baggage charges
f. Gratuities, tips to guides and drivers
g. Personal loss, illness or damages incurred during your trip
Remark : Quotations listed are valid excluding the periods of Chinese holidays and special events.