Lijiang

The old quarter never had a wall. Water from the Yu was split three ways into a channel in every lane, and those did the dividing. The paving is smooth from use and slick after rain. At night the lanes look alike; the current tells you which way is down.

The seat of the Naxi Mu chieftains for generations, brought down by the 1996 earthquake and rebuilt after it. The halls climb the slope of Lion Hill behind, so from the topmost of them the roofs of the old town read as one field.

Stand on the five-arch bridge and the whole snow mountain comes back at you off the water. In dry years the pool drops and the reflecting surface shrinks with it. Ten minutes' walk from the north end of the old town, so it goes in as a morning stroll.

Get on it early. Cloud comes up most afternoons and takes the peak. Nobody climbs the 5,596-metre summit; a cable car goes to a deck near 4,500 metres, where a few steps leave you breathing hard. Oxygen canisters and heavy coats are hired at the foot.

Dissolved lime holds the water a jade colour even under cloud. The stretch where it steps over a run of low weirs lies along the descent from the snow mountain cable car, so the two go in one day.

A village four kilometres northwest of Dayan, once a staging post on the tea-horse road. The channels and stone bridges look much the same and the crowd does not, which is why people who find Dayan loud move their beds here.

Murals painted under the Ming survive in a handful of small temples here. One panel can carry a Han Daoist deity, a Tibetan Buddhist figure and Naxi Dongba elements at once, three traditions overlapping at a glance. The village is small enough to cycle to.

A highland wetland at 2,400 metres that fills with waterbirds through the winter. Horse rides round the shore are sold everywhere, at prices and lengths that vary by operator, so settle how far you are going before getting on.

The Jinsha narrows hard as it forces through this gorge. Steps drop from the road to the floor of it, and coming back up takes far longer than going down. About two hours by car from Lijiang, which makes it a whole day out.

A timber tower stands on top of Lion Hill, its roof visible from any lane in the old town. Climb it and the tiles running one way and the snow mountain behind them come into a single frame.

A museum by the north gate of Black Dragon Pool, centred on Dongba, the picture script of Naxi priests. Dongba manuscripts entered UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2003. The glyphs draw cattle, sun and people as they look, so a few read unlabelled.

A Naxi village beneath Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, houses and walls built of stones from the slopes. The house botanist Joseph Rock lived in from the 1920s is now a small memorial. Higher than the old town, on clear days it has the peak overhead.

Here the Jinsha, flowing south, swings abruptly northeast in front of Shigu. The town is named after a drum-shaped stone stele, and from a hilltop viewing deck the whole bend opens below. It fits neatly on the road to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

An open-air show directed by Zhang Yimou on a red set over three thousand metres up, under Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The cast is not actors but hundreds of people from nearby villages of several peoples, plus horses. It runs by day; pack a sunhat and drink.