I’ve heard this point of view before in China – an admiration for strong leaders who bring glory to their nations, and a sense that whatever bad things they’ve done need to be weighed against the positive of their work towards building a strong nation. In Europe, this kind of assessment would be unthinkable, maybe because the memories of World War II and the result of overly fervent nationalism are still so fresh in our memories (and more importantly, taught so thoroughly in our schools).

In the end though, our fellow bus passenger concluded that he likes Deng Xiaoping better, because Deng was much more pragmatic (although he also pointed out that Deng was responsible for the events of 1989, and so he wasn’t all good either). He also told us that a friend who had been abroad said that he was surprised to discover that the roads in European cities are less wide than roads in some Chinese cities, and concluded that some Chinese cities are more developed than European cities. Mao is out and growth is in, and wide roads and big infrastructure projects are the new objects of worship — the future is dark for pedestrians in Chinese cities.

Mao memorabilia on sale at a tourist shop in Shaoshan

People in the area have clearly come to the conclusion that making money from tourists is much more pleasant than subsistence farming, and everywhere we went, people shouted “Bamboo, bamboo” along our path, in the hopes that we might choose to float down the river for a few hundred yuan in their bamboo raft. The verbs to “bamboo” and to “wa-ke”, i.e. to walk, the opposite of to “bamboo”, seem to have become a part of the language in this part of Guangxi, a reflection perhaps of the high concentration of foreign tourists in Yangshuo (although the neon lights and deafening music on the high street come nightfall prove that there are lots of Chinese tourists as well). Many a conversation in Chinese went along the lines of, “Do you want to bamboo?” “No, we’re hiking”, “Oh, you want to wa-ke. Do you want to bamboo tomorrow?”

We were there the weekend after 清明节, the Tomb Sweeping Festival, so the hills were filled not only with tourists but also with people visiting the tombs of deceased relatives to 扫墓, which involved placing incense, offerings of paper money, baijiu, cigarettes and other things useful in the afterlife, and above all, setting off lots and lots of firecrackers. When I first came to China and heard a salvo of firecrackers go off somewhere in the distance, my first reaction was always “gunshots”. After two years here, my first reaction is usually “wedding party”, but really, I’ve learned over time that loud bangs in the distance could mean anything, and I’ve even learned to walk right past them without covering my ears and with only a slight lingering fear of losing a foot. Acclimatisation successful.

Pictures below are from our wa-ke along the Li River, and our wa-ke up and (finally giving in) bamboo down the Yulong River.

View from the bank of the Li River

Freshly swept tombs strewn with paper money for the deceased and red shells from firecrackers set off to scare away evil spirits

Yulong River

Smoke rises from a mountain behind the fields where a salvo of firecrackers has just been set off

Onboard the Duk Ling, a restored Chinese junk

Misty Hong Kong skyline

The region is essentially Tibetan, both in terms of culture and in terms of the terrain (Shangri-La is at 3200m, compared to Lhasa at only slightly higher 3490m — for anyone going there, the altitude is not to be underestimated), and given the travel restrictions around travelling to Tibet for foreigners, travelling to this part of Yunnan provides a slightly more accessible way to see a slice of Tibet. The beautiful natural environment is also a draw (from what I could gather from an old Lonely Planet guidebook from the late 90s that we found in a cafe in Shangri-La, the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek has been popular for quite some time). So everything was in place for a tourist boom.

Chörten near the Ganden Sumtseling Gompa

But what really made a difference was the name change, from Zhongdian to Shangri-La. Shangri-La is a fictional place from the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, a place described as an earthly utopia (the Shangri-La hotel chain chose the name to evoke the serenity and calm described in the book). Tourist officials noticed that some of the geography around Zhongdian matches descriptions in the book, and claimed that Zhongdian was in fact the real Shangri-La. According to Lonely Planet, a villager in a rival town also claiming to be the “real” Shangri-La was even told that she was a blood relative of one of the fictional characters in the book. And so in 2001, the town was renamed. When we were there, the name Shangri-La seemed to be more or less universally used — it was the only name on buses to the town and signs in the town, and we met several people when we were travelling who told us they were from Shangri-La, rather than from Zhongdian.

It’s clear that the city is in the middle of a process of touristification — the old town has been preserved and marked off for tourists, and there are hostels and backpackers cafes with coffee and pizza. It’s still (thankfully) no where near as developed or as polished as Lijiang, but it’s probably headed in that direction. It’s hard to tell how much of the growth of tourism comes from the name change, but my sense is that the name Shangri-La, with all of its exotic connotations, has been very important.

It always feels a bit sad to see a place turned into a tourist trap, but then again, given the options, touristification is probably a pretty good way to go — it creates incentives to keep the air and ground clean, and this way at least a little bit of traditional culture might be preserved while still freeing as much of the population as possible from the poverty and back-breaking work in sustenance farming that they’re stuck with at the moment. And given that the type of Western tourists who are likely to travel to Shangri-La will mostly be backpackers who like to eat at cheap restaurants and stay in family guest houses, at least some of the money is likely to go to the people who need it the most. Either way, interesting to see such an obvious and calculated case of touristification in practice.

Ganden Sumtseling Gompa

The trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge is different. It’s a popular trek (especially with Western tourists), so villagers have responded by setting up guest houses and ticket booths along the way (the main ticket booth pops up more than an hour into the trek, when there’s no turning back, very sneaky). But other than that, the trek just follows a narrow dirt path through the hills and mountains along the gorge, connecting small farming villages. We shared the path with adorable goats grazing in the hills and local people herding donkeys and cows. The views were beautiful, and it was nice to get away from carefully crafted tourist spots. Yunnan is in the midst of rapid touristification, and given how popular this trek is, more development of the trail is sure to come, but for now, it’s still a wonderful two-day break from civilization.

Gorgeous

Following the mountain path

Green fields

Like parent, like child

A waterfall flows across the trail

Some logistics, for anyone else interested in doing the trek:

We took the afternoon bus from Lijiang to Qiaotou (桥头, which takes around 2h), and spent the first night at Jane’s Guest House in Qiaotou. After a night at Jane’s Guest House, we set off at around 9 am (although an hour earlier would have been better, the sun gets quite strong around mid-day). There were five of us in total who were on the same bus from Lijiang, so we did the trek together, which was a good call — there are lots of spots on the trail where if anything were to happen, you’re at least an hour away from the nearest village, and there’s safety in numbers (and our French trekking companions were wonderful company). We reached Tea Horse Guest House at around 2 pm, and had lunch there (there are only a handful of spots along the way to buy water, so bring enough to last through the morning — the first few hours of the trek are by far the toughest). Then we continued on to Halfway Guest House, which took another 1-2 hours, and spent the night there (I highly recommend their beef sandwich!).

The next day, we started out a little earlier, and reached the low road and Tina’s guest house after around 2 hours of easy walking. From near Tina’s, the path continues down to the river and Tiger Leaping Stone. The path down to Tiger Leaping Stone is very steep, very narrow, and on wet/windy days, potentially quite dangerous — when we were there, it was fairly windy, so only a part of our group was brave enough to climb down, and it took them about two hours to go down and return back to the same spot (although had we had more time, it makes the most sense to walk down to the stone, follow the path along the river, and then come up along the longer path further downstream). There’s a 10 rmb entrance fee at the top of the path, and then another 50 rmb fee about 15 minutes down — another group ahead of us had turned back because they thought it was too expensive, but when our group went down, the door was open and there was no one at the ticket booth, so they didn’t have to pay. Down by Tiger Leaping Stone, there’s apparently a sign warning travellers not to climb out onto the stone, since tourists have died there in the past, so when the water is high, beware.

The easiest way to get to Lijiang back to or Shangri-la is to first return to Qiaotou, and since the road back has been blocked by landslides at two points between Tina’s and Jane’s, getting back requires booking a minibus through one of the guest houses, which for us cost 150 rmb per bus (seating 6 people) for the whole stretch (one bus to the first landslide, where we got off and climbed over the rocks, then another to the second landslide, and a third for the final stretch). To get from Qiaotou to Lijiang or Shangri-la, you can either wait for a bus by the side of the road in Qiaotou (they pass by roughly once an hour), or, if you have enough people going in the same direction, Jane can organize a minibus (which is how we made our way back to Lijiang).