Beijing and Mongolia: Great Wall & Ulaanbaatar

When your flight lands at Beijing Capital International Airport, your personal tour guide is already waiting for you here. It will take you about an hour from the airport to the downtown hotel and the guide will give you a brief introduction of your Beijing tour on the way. After checking into the hotel, you will enjoy the leisure time to recover from jet lag.

Your exploration of Beijing begins from Tiananmen Square, the badge of Chinese political centre. From there, it is easy to get to the Forbidden City, where the previous emperors worked and lived 600 years ago. Walk from the Meridian Gate to East Flowery Gate, you will not only feel the mysterious ambiance in the royal palace, but also can see the Imperial Ancestral Temple where royal members worshiped their ancestors.

Afterward, continue to Jingshan Park to get a panorama view of the royal building complex and the surrounding area.

Today's journey is a visit to the Great Wall, which is what you can't miss in China.

To avoid the crowds and get a better view, you will be driven about 2.5 hours to Jinshanling Great Wall, one of the best-preserved sections that keeps many original features. You can do circular hiking on it for around 3 hours according to your physical energy. After that, drive back to Beijing at dusk.

This morning, you will firstly visit a local food market, where you can taste some local flavors, then to the Temple of Heaven - another masterpiece of Chinese architecture and a sacred place where the emperor visited yearly to pray for good harvest. In the afternoon, continue a tour to the Summer Palace before heading to the airport for your flight to Ulaanbaatar.

After arriving in Ulaanbaatar, be picked up and transferred to the hotel.

Drive about 2.5 hours to Hustai National Park, where you have a chance to run into Przewalski wild horses and learn about the history of the last pure wild horses. In the evening, take one-hour horse riding on the meadow.

Free in the morning to do further exploration on your own in Hustai National Park. In the afternoon, proceed to Karakorum, which was the capital of the Mongol Empire 750 years ago.

Firstly, visit the Karakorum Museum in the morning to understand the history of the rise and fall of this ancient city over the past hundreds of years. Continue to Erdene Zuu Monastery, the first Gelugpa temple in Mongolia which symbolizes the beginning of Tibetan Buddhism in the whole Mongolia. Afterward, go back for around 1.5 hours and reach to Elsen Tasarkhai.

Morning excursion to Hugnu Khaan Mountain will provide you comprehensive landscapes of sand dunes, small forest, and hills covered with rare bushes. In the afternoon, drive about 6 hours back to Ulaanbaatar.

Today's tour in Ulaanbaatar includes Gandan Monastery - the largest and most important monastery of Mongolia, the National History Museum and Chinggis Square where you will see the Parliament House, National Opera and City Hall. Later on, climb up to the Zaisan Hill to get a great view of the city. Enjoy traditional dancing and khoomei (Mongolian throat singing) this evening.

After breakfast, head to the airport for your onward flight back home.