Chiang Mai to the Great Wall of China

Twenty-four nights from Chiang Mai to Beijing, guided, more than 5,300 kilometres across Laos, China and Tibet to the Great Wall, with five rest days in it.

Northern Laos comes first, mountain country with empty roads, then the Silk Road towns of Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan, both of them walled old towns that have survived more or less intact.

Tibet follows, with several passes above 4,000 metres, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-La, then the Kham region in the east, which is culturally distinct from central Tibet and known for its hospitality. Labrang monastery comes next, one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries outside Tibet proper, then Xi’an and the Terracotta Army, the Yungang grottoes with their fifth-century rock-cut Buddhas, a day walking on the Great Wall itself and Beijing at the end, with the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Five world heritage sites fall along the way.

The transfers in Chiang Mai, twenty-four nights in hotels and resorts with leisure facilities, breakfast every day, seventeen lunches and twelve dinners, a late-model motorcycle with unlimited mileage and a day-by-day route with navigation files are all included. Twenty-five days with five rest days built in is a gentler schedule than the mileage suggests, and the rest days are placed where the sightseeing is rather than scattered for the sake of it. Altitude is the thing to prepare for, since the Tibetan section stays high for several days. The season is set by the passes rather than by the monsoon in Thailand, so the dates are fixed. This is the tour for anyone who wants the length and the countries of an expedition with a famous finish rather than a mountain at the end.