Mysterious Taoist Mountain Hiking Experience

8:00-9:30am:  Meet and transfer to the start point

After picking you up in your hotel lobby at 08:30am. We will drive about 1.5 hours to a tea hill nearby Mt. Qingcheng, northwest to Chengdu. Around 10:00 am we will arrive there. We will start our walking tour from an elegant tea house where we may taste tea after our hiking.

9:30-15:00pm:  4 hour mountain hike to explore the Taoist Temple and tea plantation

The hiking route is a 10-kilometre loop line which takes about 4-5 hours. This is a real off-beat hiking route to enjoy the country views that even the locals seldom know. We will first walk half way up the hill from where we can have a wonderful bird view of Chengdu Plain. It will give us a clear idea of how Chengdu Plain spreads out. Then route to the top, we will cross the tea plantation and the factory where you can see how different kinds of tea are made from the same-looking leaves.

Apart from tea culture related experience, you will also see the village life, enjoy the scenery and learn about Taoism as we go further. The villagers living on the hill still remain the traditional lifestyle. We may see them cutting branches in the orchards or fertilizing vegetables in the fields. It'll be fun to greet them and chat for a while. The higher we get, the better views we will have. Once we get to the top, we will first encounter a hidden Taoist Temple called Zhangrenguan, which is regarded as the true birthplace of Taoism. It is said to have a much longer history than Taoist temples on Mt. Qingcheng. Even as old and shabby as it is, there are still 4 to 5 Taoist priests practicing Taoism there.

Further down the track, we will walk about 15 minutes to a local farmer's house and we will have a picnic lunch with coffee or tea here. And there are two more mysterious temples hidden in forests, but we can still see people from cities coming there to meditate and practice Taoism. If we are lucky enough, we may have a chance to talk to them and learn about Taoism.

15:00-16:00pm: Chinese Tea Ceremony Break

Finally, we will walk down along the valley trail and meet our driver on the road. And then drive to the local tea house to relax ourselves.The tea lady there will share with us the knowledge of Chinese Tea Ceremony, and we will try 2-3 different kinds of tea.

16:00-17:30pm: Go back to downtown Chengdu

It takes us about 1.5hrs back to downtown Chengdu, the end of trip.

Pls notice that this is a rough schedule for the full day tour, it may be affected by the traffic conditions.