In June 2017, a group of over 50 students and their teachers from various Hong Kong schools (La Salle College, the St. Paul's Secondary School as well as the Pui Tak Canossian College) took part in our South Of The Colourful Clouds Tour throughout Yunnan.
As usual, we at Wonders Of Yunnan Travel were in charge of handling the ground services and due to the well-arranged tour preparations, the large group of students and teachers could enjoy a wonderful trip! This included tailoring the student's tour activities and ensuring to deliver the most authentic experience of Yunnan, such as presenting some of our province's top tourist attractions as well as local ethnic minority cultures.
In recent years, study tours have definitely become a trend for both Chinese and foreign students as they offer the opportunity to combine study, travel and cultural immersion. Starting from 2015, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) and the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government (LOCPG) in Hong Kong and Macau have established a program to promote study tours for teenagers from Hong Kong and Macau visiting mainland China.
The long time foreign presence in the so called Special Administrative Regions (SAR) over the last centrury deeply influenced the local culture, especially the educational and legal systems, creating quite a wide cultural and economic gap between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong and Macau citizens. This cooperation aims to promote the communication between young people from the SARs and mainland China, by giving students the chance of better understanding local popular culture and lifestyle. Such travel projects have been well received as the number of participants in study tours is constantly growing.
The first stop of this tour was Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province. Here our young clients visited a China wide famous enterprise, the Yunnan Baiyao Company, where they learnt about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), its uses and its great influence on people’s daily lives.
Later, our tour continued to the nearby Stone Forest with its beautiful scenery of karst pillars. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site and an absolute must-see destination in Yunnan. Thanks to the detailed explanation of one of our exerienced and English-speaking tour guides, the students got to learn more about the origins of this amazing natural phenomenon and the intriguing legend behind the famous Rock of Ashima, that takes its name from a girl of Sani ethnicity, who was kidnapped and forced to marry an evil man, but when managed to escape with her lover drowned and turned into a rock.
After Kunming, the tour proceeded to Dali and Lijiang. On the way to Dali, we visited the Dinosaur Valley, which is located in Lufeng County and is nicknamed "the hometown of dinosaurs" because of the great number of fossils discovered here in the 20th century. In Dali and Lijiang our young travellers explored the amazing diversity of local ethnic Bai and Dongba cultures, not only by observing locals and their customs but also by taking part in activities such as tie-dying in Zhoucheng, visiting the morning market in Xizhou Village as well as learn writing Dongba hieroglyphs.
All these activities and the sorrounding beauty of the ethnic villages left an unforgettable impression of Yunnan on the students.
Before heading back to Hong Kong, the group visited the former site of National South-West Associated University and the Jiangwutang Military Academy in Kunming.
We at Wonders Of Yunnan know very well the deeper purposes of travelling, which is not just simple sightseeing, but is also about deeply understanding the underlying culture and history of a place. For this reason, we are always striving to provide the best and most authentic travel experience to our customers, focusing on meeting their expectations and even go beyond them. In this case, we carefully customized this tour for our young guests, combining history, geography and local culture and eventually were all very satisfied with the outcome!
Please feel free to contact us for school trips and educational tours through Yunnan and China!
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