Our hike out of Yubeng was 4.5 hours of downhill (7 miles) leaving the oasis of Yubeng and entering the desert cliffs of the Mekong river (which flows all the way to the ocean in Vietnam). The trail followed a narrow water pipe access trail built into the edge of the steep cliff ( not intimidating as long as you don’t look down). The change of the ecosystem was quite dramatic and several mentioned it looked like the Southwest and the Grand Canyon. Then we had a 4.5 hour drive to Shangri-La ( the old town in the picture below)
