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).

We stayed in the Yuyuan Guesthouse (玉源客栈, recommended in Lonely Planet), which is probably our favorite hotel on the trip so far (although the Fairyland hotel chain in Kunming is a close contender). Yuyuan is on a small, beautiful pedestrian street (红龙井) that has a brook-style fountain running down the middle, close to the central café and shopping area in Dali, probably the most ideal location possible. It’s built in a lovely courtyard style, with intricate wood cuts on the wall and wonderful dark wood furniture in the rooms. The staff are incredibly friendly, and there’s free wireless and free laundry – all for only 60 rmb per night for a double (it says 80 on the wall, I assume that’s the high-season price). Highly recommended for anyone passing through Dali!

Favorite bakery

Since there are lots of foreign tourists in Dali, there are also lots of cafes, restaurants, bars, and up-scale bakeries (as everyone knows, foreigners love bread). Our absolute favorite is Sweet Tooth (on 52 Boai Road), a really cute cake shop with delicious (and not too expensive) pastries and cakes. The cake shop also benefits the local deaf community, and it seems to be especially popular with expats who live in Dali (as opposed to tourists), always a good sign.

And on top of everything else, the people who work there are adorable. Our second time there, a Kings of Convenience song came on while I was paying, and I mentioned that I liked the music. So for the rest of the time we were there, the CD played on a constant loop. And then when we came back the next day, as soon as we sat down at the table, Kings of Convenience came on again, and again played on a constant loop for the rest of our time there. Right before leaving Dali, we went there one last time, and for the first 30 minutes or so, a CD with Chinese music was on, and I thought that maybe this time they’d had enough of Kings of Convenience. But soon I once again heard the familiar sound of the first song on Quiet is the New Loud. I guess the customer is always right, especially when the customer is a frequently returning one — which we were, mainly for the sake of the delicious cakes.

A walking path snakes along the side of Cangshan

Favorite mountain

The obvious choice here is Cangshan (苍山), the ever-present backdrop to Dali Old Town. There’s a chairlift up to the main trail, but thinking that it would be easy to walk to the chairlift, we instead somehow ended up on the hiking trail up the mountain (and saved 50rmb each on the return ticket for the chair lift, money we could then with good conscience spend at Sweet Tooth). The hiking trail up the mountain takes about two (very sweaty) hours up stone stairs, and ends up on a very well-kept path along the side of the mountain. Another 15 minutes up rough stone steps from Zhonghe Temple (where the chairlift drops off those who are able to figure out where to get on it), there is, surprisingly, a hostel, where we had lunch. Apparently they had three guests the day we were there (who were all out in the mountains at the time), and the guy working there told us that people like to stay there both for the atmosphere and because it’s a good starting point for more ambitious climbs up into the mountains. All in all, a very beautiful and relatively accessible mountain.

A steep drop to the bottom (luckily the way up was along a much less scary path)

饵丝, in soup

Favorite food

One of the specialties in Dali is a type of noodle that I think must be made from glutinous rice, served sometimes as squares (饵块), sometimes as noodles (饵丝). Eating it every day would be overwhelming, but for a few days, it’s quite delicious.

饵块, fried

Favorite day trip

Our muscles were pretty sore after the hike on Cangshan, but we decided we could handle more, so the next day we rented bikes to make the 30km trip to Shaping (沙坪), where a weekly market was being held that day. The ride there was long, but manageable – we were biking along a very well-paved and fairly even road, through fields where people were plowing and harvesting (seeing how heavy the work was made me a little embarrassed over having played Happy Farmer). But unfortunately there was also lots of heavy traffic on the road, so the ride wasn’t quite as peaceful as we had hoped. And on the way back, it became clear that 60km in one day was nearing the limit of what my body could handle, and with limbs transformed into a patchwork of bruises and sore muscles, I struggled on.

On the way back we stopped in Xizhou (喜州), which was only 19 km from Dali, and much nicer than Shaping. For anyone else looking for a day-trip from Dali, cycling to Xizhou, exploring the village, going down to the lake and then cycling back to Dali would be ideal.

Rice terraces

Yesterday we hiked from the village where we’re staying and out into the countryside, over winding dirt roads, stone paths and green fields, through tiny villages that were filled with babies of all sorts (piglets, chickens, baby cows, and adorable human babies). The weather was beautiful, it was incredibly peaceful, and there were almost no other tourists in sight (or shops for that matter, not even in the villages, so we were glad that we’d brought along plenty of water). There has been a drought in Yunnan this winter, and March seems to be at the tail-end of irrigation season, so a lot of the terraces were dry, which created a different but also very beautiful scenery.

One of the villages we passed through on our walk

Adorable piglets

Less adorable pig coming out of the outhouse -- I don't want to know what she was doing in there

And then today, we booked a one-day tour of the higher and more famous views of the terraces. Unfortunately, the clouds that were high up the sky yesterday were today lying low over the mountains, and the higher we climbed, the thicker the fog grew. The tour was supposed to start with a view of the sunrise from 多依树, and even before we realized how thick the fog was, the day started badly.

The tour guide who convinced us to hire a driver for the day told us that the price would be 220 for the two of us and a third person who wanted to join the tour, and that the price would somehow include avoiding the 60 yuan entrance fee. We weren’t sure what this would involve, but didn’t ask any questions (always a mistake). The driver picked us up at 6am, and then snaked up the narrow road in the dark, thankfully driving very slowly through the thick mist. We reached a fork in the road, and she chose the road on the right, avoiding the toll booth. Then all of the sudden she stopped, turned the tiny three-wheeled minibus around, and starting waving towards the door with her flashlight. Between her half-local language half-mandarin explanations and my half-mandarin half-confused questions, we finally figured out that she wanted us to take the flashlight and walk down a tiny path through the trees that led into the darkness. So we obliged, and after 10 or 20 meters we reached another road, where we waited for her to pick us up. In our early-morning perplexed states of mind, we weren’t particularly quiet or discreet with our flashlight, so once we had figured out what was going on, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that as soon as we climbed back into the minibus, a guard came running towards us with a flashlight, which he shone menacingly into the car. We all sat there in silence, including the driver. Finally she asked us, “去不去？”, and we decided it was safest to buy the entrance ticket and go ahead as planned, hoping we would still be able to catch the sunrise.

(Even if we had been able to sneak through, there were more ticket checks later on, so it wouldn’t have been much use. Our group disagreed over whether or not we had been scammed. The others suspected she knew we would have to buy tickets and didn’t tell us, in order to make us believe the price was lower than it actually was, and that she knew it would be so foggy that we wouldn’t be able to see anything but took us around anyway, just to get our money. I think the driver really thought she would be able to sneak us through, and that she hoped the weather would clear up. I was the one communicating with her, and she was really sweet. Either way, this was money going directly into the local economy, so it felt well spent.)

But when we got to the top, the fog was so thick that we couldn’t even see a few meters ahead of us, let alone the view of the rice terraces in the valley below. So after an hour or so in the car, some rice noodles, and lots of driving around to other viewing points that were just as foggy, we finally returned to the village to regroup. We tried again for the sunset this evening, but by 5pm it was clear that seeing the sunset through the fog would be impossible. Instead we stopped at spots along the road where the view was particularly beautiful (and the view of the water-filled terraces disappearing into the mist was also beautiful, in a different way). And at the very last stop, a little bit further downhill than the most famous viewing points, a small road led down into a valley where the fog had cleared up a bit, and we finally got to see more or less the picture-perfect view of hills covered with water-filled rice terraces that Yuanyang is famous for, which made the day of driving through clouds to search for views seem worthwhile.

Rice terraces in the mist

Ducks bathing in one of the terraced fields

We’re now in Kunming, the first stop on our trip. We were here a few weeks ago to visit a friend for Spring Festival, so the city already feels familiar, and we went straight back to our favorite café. There are more foreigners here in Wuhan, but still nothing like Beijing/Shanghai, and the vibe here is more hipster than yuppie. And the weather here is amazing – it’s known as 春城, the city of eternal spring. If I come back to live in China in the future, it very well might be to live in Kunming.

Other than the weather, accessible size of the city, pleasant tree-lined streets, cozy cafes and overall laid-back vibe, one of the things I like the most is how much of an art scene there seems to be here. Last night we went to an exhibition opening at a gallery called TC/G Nordica, which was co-founded by a Swedish woman who lived in Kunming a few years ago, and serves as a café / gallery / performance space, with a particular focus on Scandinavian-Chinese cultural exchange. I actually read about the gallery a few weeks ago in a book about Swedish entrepreneurs in China (there aren’t many, and this woman was one of the few who seemed to have done something interesting). So it was fun to visit the gallery in person. We had a very authentic-tasting kanelbulle with our coffee, so at the very least they got that important aspect of cultural exchange right.

The exhibition was titled “四季·春天”, and featured artwork from female artists in Kunming, loosely tied around the theme “spring”. The opening was filled with people, both Chinese and foreign. And lots of people took pictures of the artwork, which in my experience doesn’t happen as much at galleries in the US/Europe (where the ritual instead generally entails standing in front of the artwork making pseudo-intellectual comments about the message the work conveys and musing over whether or not it speaks to the viewer). I thought taking pictures was a fantastic idea, so I did the same. Below are some of my favorites from the exhibition.

我发现了，在中国，每个地方的外国人都不一样。去上海的外国人一般来说是因为工作的原因去，常常是做商业还是金融的工作，喜欢在西餐饭馆吃饭，晚上去酒吧玩儿（同力，你同意不？）。在北京的外国人，有的是因为工作让他们临时住在中国所以在北京呆几年，住在北京的郊区，比方说顺义，不会说汉语。 有的是外交、记者等、还是其他比较聪明的人士，其中应该有很多intellectuals。去武汉（和类似还没有完全国际化的城市）的外国人，有的是因为（跟我一样）想理解中国和学好汉语，认为在外国人少一些的地方认识中国人的机会应该多一些。也有很多有自己的原因，有可能在北京上海找不到工作。我在武汉认识了很多在自己的国家会被认为很奇怪的外国人，不知道为什么他们都选择去武汉了。昆明的外国人呢？好像住在中国的外国人其中，昆明的是最cool的。看上去很多是先来中国旅游，然后因为特别喜欢云南决定来这里开咖啡馆还是旅舍。他们穿的衣服跟纽约和伦敦的hipsters一样（hipster是一种很cool的年轻人，一般来说穿得很时尚，受到了高等教育，很聪明，很喜欢音乐和艺术，喜欢做事做得跟主流不一样）。Hipster一般用的是贬义词，“主流人”认为hipsters太看重自己，但是我现在用这个词是褒义词，他们很cool！我在纽约住的地方（叫Williamsburg）是一个有很多hipsters的地方，一般来说我觉得有很多这种人的地方是生活很舒服和很有意思住的地方。所以可以说昆明是中国的Williamsburg。又是一个想住在昆明的原因！

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But my strongest memory of this year’s Spring Festival will most likely be the food. So much food. It seems like we’ve been eating constantly – and when I’ve been full, I’ve been urged to taste just one more thing. In China, people often show consideration for others around the table by picking the tastiest pieces out of the dishes on the table and loading them onto your plate, while urging you to eat more – which can be difficult to get used to for us foreigners, who might not like the same dishes that Chinese people consider to be the tastiest (which are usually the most rare and therefore also the most strange), and who also generally like to stop eating when we’re full. This was especially true in Kunming, where our friend’s aunt showed her hospitality by filling our plates with food, and when we had finished that, loading our plates with more and urging us to taste everything from the selection of dishes that covered the table, always enough for at least three times the size of our group. The food she cooked at home was delicious, and when we ate out it was always at very nice restaurants, but there was always so much, it was hard for my stomach to keep up. Yesterday was only the second time I’ve had rice since I left home almost two weeks ago – rice is filler food, and at every meal there’s been so much cooked food that there’s been no need (or room) for rice.

羊肉汤

In Weiyuan, my friend protected me from being forced to over-eat – she wanted me to taste all of her favorite food from her home town, so she insisted that I didn’t have to finish anything I ate. There, instead, the focus was on variety. I have now tasted cow stomach, duck throat, duck intestine, and duck tongue. Yesterday morning we left home at 6 am to have time for sheep soup before our bus to Chengdu, a soup boiled from sheep everything (stomach, intestines, skull) from which I managed to choose mostly only meat pieces from the soup and hide the sheep blood pudding under my rice. We had the soup with plum wine, “to warm us up”. I soon learned not to ask until after I had finished eating what it was I had just eaten, and sometime it wasn’t as bad as I thought (thick rice noodles), sometimes it was (pig’s ears). To be fair, most organs were perfectly edible, but it’s hard to get used to the consistency of stomach and tongue, let alone the thought of what it was I was eating. I’ve definitely broadened my food horizons on this trip.

People also have a tendency to notice which dishes you eat from the most, or which dishes you praise the most, and then see to it that those dishes magically appear again at the next meal, which really is very considerate. Our last evening in Weiyuan, we had hot pot, and the person sitting to my right, one of my friend’s high school classmates, must have noticed that I preferred to eat the meat pieces from the pot, while everyone else around the table clearly liked stomach, intestines, throat and tongue the best. When he fished around for the cooked food at the bottom of the pot, he picked out a piece of duck’s throat for the person to his right, something suspicious-looking for himself, and a piece of meat for me, to my great relief. Sometimes people say that Chinese people show emotions more through actions than words, and food definitely seems to be one way to show care and consideration.

In Weiyuan, my friend also made sure that I tasted as many of their local snacks as possible, which she insisted I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else in China (at least not with the same flavor) – most of our schedule for the three days I was there was planned around fitting in as much food as possible. I gave up early on trying to remember the names of everything I was eating. Since this is Sichuan, a lot of it was spicy (tofu with rice and a spicy sauce; spicy cold rice noodles; spicy cold egg noodles; something that looked like ravioli in a spicy soup), but there were also things that were sweet (my favorite was a snack that looked like a small pancake, with lots of different options for fillings, including chocolate; another good one was a brown cold soup with a type of noodle that looked a little bit like shrimp; raw sugar cane was peeled, chopped up and sold as a snack on the street; and all of the tea houses had a type of chrysanthemum tea with red dates, goji berries, and pieces of raw sugar cane). And then here in Chengdu, we’ve done the same thing with Chengdu food. We had lunch (which consisted of what must have been at least ten different kinds of local snacks) today at a food-court style restaurant that she said a friend of hers from Taipei flies to Chengdu specifically to eat at, and he then flies back when he’s finished his meal.

My friend's mother, shopping for Chinese medicine

And to top it all off, my friend’s mother sent me off with a huge bag filled with home-cooked meats and sausages, typical Weiyuan snacks, apples for the road, and a bag of Chinese medicine that I’m to boil and drink at the start of next year’s winter to build up my immune system. I thought that my bags coming home (with presents unloaded – the bottle of Absolut I brought seemed very popular with her parents) would be lighter than when I set off a week and a half ago, but now instead I’m coming back with overfilled luggage and more food than I can possible finish. Anyone hungry?

The positive impression is also colored by the fact that thanks to our friend, we’ve been getting VIP treatment since the moment we stepped off the plane. On our first afternoon, we were taken to the “Yunnan Nationalities Village”, a theme park for displaying the cultures of the different minority groups that live in Yunnan (as well as elephants). Our friend’s father knows the manager of the park, and after being dropped off just inside one of the side entrances to the park, the manager personally welcomed us, and then handed us over to a guide who first brought us to the park restaurant for a very fancy lunch and then showed us around the park. We were driven around in a park-style golf cart, and the guide made sure that we made it to each part of the park just in time for each of the different dance performances. In the evening, the park held its yearly Spring Festival dinner for its employees and a few specially-invited local officials, and we were invited to join the dinner and observe the festivities. So all in all, a very VIP tour of the park.

A replica of Xishuangbanna's Manfeilong pagoda

I have to admit, I was fairly sceptical of the idea of a “minorities theme park”, it sounds suspiciously like a “minorities zoo”. The park itself was actually built in a fairly tasteful way, with beautiful replicas of important sites in Yunnan and examples of the types of houses that different minority groups in Yunnan have traditionally lived in (in that way, it was a little bit similar to Skansen in Stockholm, which does the same thing for traditional Swedish culture). In each “village” inside the park, there were also performances of traditional cultural dances, performed by park employees from those minority groups, which was also interesting to see and done in both a tasteful and entertaining way.

A performer climbs a ladder made of swords

But then there were also a few people who seemed to be hired just to be there, as a part of the scenery, in more of a zoo-type way. In one of the “villages”, an old woman with a tattooed face (typical for one of the minority groups in Yunnan)  walked around among the houses. Our guide thought we should have our picture taken with her, but the woman objected, and told the guide that she didn’t like foreigners because once during the Water Splashing Festival, some foreigners called her names and attacked her with water guns. We insisted that we didn’t need a picture, but the guide convinced the woman that we were friendly foreigners, and in the end we all took a group photo together. I assume that all of the people who work at the park have chosen to do so because the pay and/or conditions are better than their other options, but walking around a park to “look at” minorities still feels very awkward.

The front of the church, with the altar labelled "altar" in Chinese, and Christmas trees on either side

There’s also apparently a minority group in Yunnan that practices Christianity, and to display that group’s culture, the park had built a small replica of a church, complete with wall murals, an altar, and choir music playing in the background, and everything inside labelled and explained. As someone who has grown up in countries where Christianity is mainly seen as a religion rather than as a cultural curiosity, it was a bit surreal to see a church in the park alongside everything else. But it put the whole park into good perspective, and in a way made me feel like at least the cultural voyeurism was taking place on slightly more even terms.

The text reads: The religion, which worships Jesus Christ the Savior, believes in that God created and rules over everything on earth, and takes the Old Testament and the New Testament as its Holy Bible, has given birth to three major sects of the Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Eastern Church and the Protestantism, and churches are the public venues where its disciples worship the God. Catholicism and Christianity propagated to Yunnan's minority-inhabited areas over a century ago, and have sizeable numbers among the Miao, Yi, Nu, Lisu and Lahu minority people. To objectively portray this religious folk culture, a Christian church is built in the Miao Village.

On Spring Festival Eve, we walked around on Kunming’s West Mountain, fed seagulls by the side of the lake (apparently the thing to do here, they sell some sort of seagull food on the sidewalk), had a big family dinner at a golf club in Kunming, and then went home to watch the Spring Festival show on TV (there was singing, dancing, magic and comedy – other than the magic, a skit with a hysterically laughing woman with a recent face-lift was by far the most popular among the non-Chinese speakers in our audience, trans-cultural humor). Humor can usually be tough to learn in a new language, so I was especially proud when I got some of the jokes in the very first skit, references to popular online phrases this year. The time I’ve spent “studying” online has been rewarded.