INFAMOUS
CHINA THE SOUTHWEST

Day 1 — Arrival in Chongqing

Land in Chongqing, a city of 32 million stacked into a gorge where the Yangtze meets the Jialing, so steep that a ground-floor door can open twenty storeys above the next street. We'll head out to Hongya Cave, eleven storeys of stilt houses built into the cliff and lit gold after dark, then dinner and the river from Nanbin Road.

Overnight: Chongqing

Day 2 — Chongqing → Zunyi

High-speed rail south into Guizhou to Zunyi, where in January 1935 the Communist Party's leadership met in a requisitioned merchant's house and came out with Mao in command, the turning point of the Long March. The Zunyi Conference Site and museum, then the old town.

Overnight: Zunyi

Day 3 — Loushan Pass → Chongqing

North to Loushan Pass, where the Red Army won its first major victory of the Long March. You'll be issued a Red Army uniform and a prop rifle and follow an actor playing the commanding officer through a forty-minute reenactment of the assault: pyrotechnics, gunfire, a cast of over a hundred. Lunch at the Red Army canteen, the battle memorial and Mao's poem cut into the hillside, then rail back to Chongqing.

Overnight: Chongqing

Day 4 — Chongqing → Zhangjiajie

Three hours east by high-speed rail across the Hunan border, then out to Wulingyuan at the gates of the national park. A deliberately light afternoon. The next two days are long ones.

Overnight: Wulingyuan

Day 5 — Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

Three thousand quartz-sandstone pillars rising hundreds of metres out of the forest, most of them in cloud. The Golden Whip Stream along the canyon floor, the Bailong Elevator, 326m of glass lift bolted to a cliff and the tallest outdoor lift in the world, then Yuanjiajie and the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain, and the ridge out to Tianzi Mountain.

Overnight: Wulingyuan

Day 6 — Tianmen Mountain → Chongqing

Up Tianmen Mountain on the longest passenger cableway on earth, seven kilometres from the middle of the city to the summit. The glass skywalk pinned to the cliff face, then down the 999 steps to Heaven's Gate, the natural arch through the mountain. Afternoon rail back to Chongqing.

Overnight: Chongqing

Day 7 — Chongqing

The Eighteen Steps, one of the last stretches of the old cliffside town, and Ciqikou's teahouses. In the afternoon there is the option to head out to one of the abandoned housing developments on the edge of the city, concrete towers left half-finished when the money ran out and the clearest physical evidence of the story behind the last decade of Chinese growth. In the evening a food tour with local guides: street stalls, noodle shops and a proper Chongqing hotpot, the fierce one this city invented. Then up to a bar on the 74th floor of one of the city's towers, run by a personal friend of our guides, for a drink over the whole city and both rivers, before heading out into Jiangbei, home to one of the biggest club scenes in China.

Overnight: Chongqing

Day 8 — Departure

A slow finish and transfers to Chongqing Jiangbei International. End of trip.

*This itinerary is a guide rather than a fixed schedule. Timings, running order and individual stops may be adjusted to suit the group's pace and guests' preferences, or to fold in additional experiences worth having while we're on the ground.

The Route