Morning - the road south-east
Wulong lies about 170 kilometres south-east of Chongqing, in the limestone country where the Wujiang river cuts through the edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau. The drive takes roughly two and a half hours and is worth the early start: the last hour climbs into a landscape of cloud-wrapped ridges and small towns built on whatever flat ground could be found. Your guide uses the drive to explain how this karst formed, and why this particular stretch of it was inscribed by UNESCO as part of the South China Karst World Heritage Site.
Late morning - the Three Natural Bridges
The Three Natural Bridges are what remains of a chain of enormous cave chambers whose roofs collapsed, leaving three limestone arches spanning a gorge. They are named Tianlong, Qinglong and Heilong - the bridges of the sky dragon, the green dragon and the black dragon - and they stand in a row, each with a collapsed hollow between them, so that the local description is "three bridges flanking two pits". The scale is hard to absorb at first sight: the arches run to more than 150 metres high, over 200 metres wide and more than 300 metres across. They are the largest natural bridge group of their kind in the world.
You descend into the gorge on the scenic area's transfer bus and the Tianlong escalator, then walk the floor of the valley from bridge to bridge on suspended walkways. This is also film country: Zhang Yimou used the gorge as the only exterior location for Curse of the Golden Flower, and the same valley appears in Transformers: Age of Extinction. Your guide points out where the gravel road and the chrysanthemum courtyard of the film were built, and what happened to the set afterwards.
Lunch
A local restaurant near the scenic area, with Wulong mountain vegetables, smoked pork and a soup. Mild cooking is available on request and the guide orders ahead.
Afternoon - the Longshuixia Gap
Twenty minutes away, the same limestone has produced something quite different: a slot gorge - the Longshuixia Gap - where a stream has cut a channel so narrow that from the bottom you see a single ribbon of sky between the walls. The walk follows a plank path bolted to the rock, past the Milky Way waterfall and the section the Chinese call "a line of sky", and the temperature drops the moment you are inside. It is a gentle walk of about an hour in one direction, with the scenic area's transfer bus and lift handling the climbs at both ends.
Late afternoon - the return
You leave Wulong in the late afternoon and are back in Chongqing in the evening, with a stop en route if the group wants one. Dinner is not included so that you can eat where and when you like; the guide will suggest places near your hotel.
Meals
Lunch
Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.
