All these were taken on April 25 and 26 during a hike over the range between Xizhou and Fengyu. There are a few I can’t identify, so any suggestions and/or corrections will be very welcome. Click on the images to open the gallery and see what they are. Cheers!

This was one of my favourites. Its cousin Rosa rubus was everywhere lower down the mountain and along the valley floors – so common, indeed, that I forgot to take a picture of it.

Let’s get on with the rhododendrons, which were the most spectacular part of the higher elevations. Cangshan doesn’t rank with the Laojun or Baimang ranges when it comes to variety, but it’s still not bad!

This is my absolute favourite rhododendron. Try as I  might with Photoshop, I can never get the pictures to do justice to this flower’s vivid red.

When I first saw it, I thought this was a Rhododendron wardii – you can’t see it in the picture, but the petals tended towards yellow. I’ve changed my mind, though…

These dominated the east side of the range from about 2,800 meters on up.

I’m not too sure about this one.

I thought this was a mock-orange of sorts, but Lijiang-based botanist Robbie Hart tells me it’s actually a Clematis, possibly montana.

I think this is a miniature version of the plant that lights up the plain around Shangri-la every spring and autumn.

An aster, I’ve no doubt, but I don’t know which one. All the flowers from here on were unknown to me, but Robbie Hart has filled in some of the blanks. Thanks, Robbie!

Following on from the recent Tea Trail trek from Lijiang, Yang Xiao and I went straight back out to see if we could find an alternative route over Cangshan. And did we ever – this has gone right to the top of my “best two-day hikes” list.

We got on the trail about 10 a.m. That’s the north end of Lake Erhai behind Yang Xiao.

Above 2,800 meters, the mountainside was covered with Rhododendron rubiginosum. They had been blooming for some time and so the paths were also frequently carpeted with fallen blossom, which also drifted on the mountain stream. You can see more of the flowers from this hike here.

Over the top, our first view of Xiao Huadianba at 3,316 meters above sea level. A bit breathless, to be honest.

Soon after starting across the pastures on Xiao Huadianba, we met a goatherd named Luo Guohu. He caught up with us a little later and asked if we wanted to see a pheasant he had caught. Of course, we said. Luo said he could get 50 yuan or so for such a bird, as they were very good eating. We offered him 30 yuan to set it free and he readily agreed. You can see the moment of liberation in the video below (I had to upload this to Tudou, because the main Chinese video site, Youku, deemed that this subversive act contravened “relevant regulations”)

We had this entire place to ourselves once the herders and woodcutters went down the mountain for the night.

At sunset the mountains turned red. It really did look like this.

A few people attached to the Chinese traditional medicine enterprise on Huadianba live in these old houses.

The following morning, we hiked for about an hour through further pastures.

We met several dozen riders and mule teams coming up from Eryuan.

These villagers keep the old caravan trail in terrific condition. It’s a testing walk, but no problem if you’re fit enough.

Over the other side, we walked down into the Fengyu Valley.

This is where all of the mules came from.

Yang Xiao looks over the valley towards the town of Fengyu.

This is the cemetery at Majia. The white tower in the background, according to our Shaxi caravan leader San Ge, is a Bai custom showing where the border lies between different families’ plots.

In April we helped stage a two-week trek along the Tea and Horse Trail between Lijiang and Xizhou, working together with “multi-award winning independent travel company” Wild Frontiers. Yang Xiao and I had explored this route extensively over the past three years, but this was the first time we had taken a group the whole way.

It was billed as a “recce” trip and while most of the paths were familiar to one or other of us, we couldn’t be sure what state some of them would be in. The gravelly slipway above, which leads into the Shaxi Valley, turned out to be the worst: the mules had to go another way and I think in future we shall probably follow their example. Overall, however, fortune favoured our venture. The sun shone, but not too much; the mules behaved impeccably; and the people weren’t too bad, either…

DAY 1: We began from the small town of Shuhe, just to the north of Lijiang, from where we drove about an hour along a road that was surely last repaired sometime during the Ming Dynasty. That took us to the mule team’s camp above Jizi Reservoir, around 2,600 meters above sea level, where our trek began in mid-morning. This country belongs to people of the Naxi ethnic group, the dominant people in the Lijiang area, and the trail first worked its way up the hillside through fields tilled by the Naxi villagers of Tianhong Cun. They greeted our caravan with some surprise but plenty of good cheer – not much happens up here and, despite the village’s proximity to the tourist trap of Lijiang Old Town, outsiders rarely come this way. The same could be said for almost all the points on our route (bar Shaxi), where one of the outstanding features is the general friendliness, patience and good humour of the locals, even when confronted with a bank of snapping cameras.

By late afternoon we had hiked up to 3,000+ meters, already the highest point of our journey and also its highest, coldest campsite. There isn’t a lot of space up here: what’s flat and open is farmed by the people of Songzhiyuan Village; the rest is covered with young pine forest. Songzhiyuan’s residents belong to the Pumi ethnic group. The next morning an old fellow wandered up from the village to say hello; I asked him where his ancestors had come from, and how long ago? He scratched his head and said he didn’t know when, but he thought they had come from Mongolia. That tallied with Yang Xiao’s theory about the Pumi, which is that they are descended from people of the Western Xia (or Tangut) Dynasty in what’s now northwest China. Legend says Genghis Khan died after being injured in battle with the Western Xia; when the Great Khan’s son defeated them in 1227, he took revenge in genocide. The survivors fled far and wide: a man named Tang Rongyao has argued that the Sherpas of Nepal are also their descendants.

DAY 2: From camp we followed the old caravan trail, which runs wide and level along the ridge far above the Hongmaicun Valley. This is the finest and longest stretch of original caravan trail that we know of, running the best part of 15 kilometers between Songzhiyuan and Gaoshanding. A curious thing occurred midway through the afternoon when we passed through the fields south of the only village on the trail. An old man broke off from digging the soil to wave at me and shout something that sounded like “Red Army”. I stopped and gestured a “beg your pardon” at him; he replied by shouting that the “Red Army walked this trail”. I waved him over to hear more. Yang Xiao and I had trekked the full Long March route (from 1936) in this region in 2006, but we had been on the trail of the 2nd Red Army, which marched right through Lijiang. The 6th Red Army had bypassed Lijiang and gone straight to the Jinsha River at Shigu; I knew this, but had never considered the exact trail they might have followed. The old fellow, whose name was Shen Xuewen, said that he saw the Reds pass by when he was 5 years old, and as he described their route I realized that this made perfect sense – so not only were we on the Tea and Horse Trail, but we had stumbled onto the Long March Trail, as well.

With a clear sky the air turned cold after sunset and so the group huddled in the teepee after dinner.

Being evangelists for Leave No Trace in China, we don’t light campfires ourselves. The muleteers have their own customs, however, and we don’t interfere with them too much. Instead, we shared a few shots of whiskey and tried to learn everyone’s names. Caravan leader San Ge offered his home-made liquor in return. Paul took a slug and his eyes almost popped out of his head; perhaps more accustomed to fiery moonshine, Neil quietly helped Paul drain his glass…

DAY 3: We left the caravan briefly to take a steep, mule-unfriendly path down the mountain via Gaoshanding, reuniting by the stream below Erlong Hydropower Station. From here the trail led down onto the plain around Lake Jian.

Camp was on the east side of the plain in one of the Bai people’s many multi-faith temples. After hiking through the village’s old-fashioned industrial zone, lined with medieval-looking lime kilns, we reached Dongshan Temple as the sun was setting over the freshly planted rice paddies.

Dongshan Temple stands next to a freshwater spring, known as a “dragon pool”, which the people from the nearby village use for fresh drinking water. Starting at dawn the next morning, a steady stream of villagers arrived carrying pails and plastic lined baskets. Unfortunately, they also leave a lot of trash behind, and so a considerable clean-up effort was required to make this site habitable. Some of us laid out mats and sleeping bags on the old performance stage you can just see at the back of the above picture.

Dongshan Temple incorporates several religious traditions. The biggest hall belongs to the village’s own guardian spirit, the benzhu. You can read more about the Bai people’s benzhu tradition here. Next to where we slept on the stage was a hall for the “dragon spring” guardian, who belongs to the Taoist pantheon, as did the hall at the very top of the complex on the hillside. On the second level were several Buddhist icons, as pictured above, while in a separate pagoda we found the kuixing pictured below: a spirit particular to the Bai who reflects their traditional commitment to education (note the writing brush in his right hand).

I don’t know why he’s riding a big fish, but this wasn’t unique to Dongshan Temple – the kuixing on Shaxi’s main square was represented in exactly the same way.

DAY 4: We crossed the plain around Lake Jian, spending much of the morning befriending and photographing the denizens of Xinren Village. One old fellow was particularly pleased to see our mule train – he told me that when he was young his village served the caravan trade in a big way, being home to more than 400 mules and horses. “There are none left now,” he said. “Mules aren’t worth anything here, anymore.” Beyond Xinren we skirted the water on the west side and endured rather an unpleasant afternoon on the main road into Diannan, a grubby town on an intersection of the Yunnan-Tibet Highway whose only redeeming features were a toilet and a fruit market.

In the afternoon, we rejoined the mountain trail above the village of Hejiang, finishing a taxing day with a steep, steep climb: 900 feet up and over a rise to a camp whose previous guests had apparently been a herd of cows. Yang Xiao named it “Cowpat Camp” and the next morning I climbed back up the mountain to find  a more salubrious spot for next time (and I did find it – no more Cowpat Camp for us!). I spotted the unusual, lone flower pictured above late in the afternoon. I was hoovering up back markers as our caravan became increasingly strung out, but stopped to take a picture in the hope someone among you readers might know what it is?

DAY 5: The trail gradually worked its way along the ridge above the Heihui River to lead us into the Shaxi Valley, which you can just see in the distance in the photo above. The only sign of human activity all morning was a hut and some fields belonging to an Yi gentleman named Shama Sijin. Unfortunately, he wasn’t home – doubtless back in his home village preparing for the Shaxi market the following day. Yang Xiao made friends with Shama Sijin not long before this trip – you can see his pix here.

DAY 6: After resupplying at the colourful Friday market in Shaxi, we spent the evening in the company of a group of old Bai musicians, who performed for us in the Old Theatre Inn in Duanjiadeng. This is a simply lovely spot and my own favourite part of the trip. You can see and hear what the old musicians are like on a video here.

We had a brief chat with one of the musicians after the performance. I wrote a bit about that here.

DAY 7: We had rested, showered and generally lived in fine style during our rest day in Shaxi, where we stayed at the beautiful Laomadian, a restored caravan inn on the north side of Shaxi’s ancient market square. No more than two hours back on the trail, however, one of our guests fancied a full bath in the limpid waters of the Black Lake Reservoir. It’s the first time anyone has gone swimming on one of our trips: next time I shall add “swimming costume” to the gear list, but given the water temperature I don’t think there will be too many takers. Lovely spot for morning tea, though.

This was among ouor longest days, and with the sun beating down during the afternoon climb above Shaoheng Village, it was probably the toughest. From our starting point in Shaxi to camp at the top of the range, we made an elevation gain of 3,300 feet – and most of that was in one go during the afternoon.

DAY 8: The next day, however, was our shortest: a mere three hours down the steep hill to the north shore of Lake Cibi. Given  that we had to descend the full 3,300 feet we had walked up the day before, however, it was with aching ankles that I entered our small guesthouse. The village by the north shore serves as a miniature tourist resort for the people of nearby Eryuan County Town, giving us another chance to shower and get fresh food supplies (as well as someone else to do the cooking).

I wasn’t the only one who needed a rest on the way down…

Once again, I was trailing along with the back markers – my preferred position in the caravan, as I like to take my time and soak up as much of the experience as possible. The only people who live on the mountain here are a handful of isolated Yi families. Passing by one of their houses, little more than a wooden shack, this old lady and her grandson waved at me and Paul (The Swimmer) and suggested we join them for lunch. We said we were sorry but we had to catch up our friends, but were persuaded inside for a cup of tea, instead. The old lady was called Yu Zhifa (as far as I could understand her accent) and as we sat by the fire and sipped her green tea an assortment of Yi children came in to join the circle: as well as Yu Zhifa’s grandson, there was his twin brother and two cousins on their way down the mountain to school – most kids from the mountains board during the week, but the cost (800 yuan a year, or about US$130) was too much for these people to bear. Yu Zhifa’s younger sister came in, as well, and like her elder sibling pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered us one – the Yi are most unusual in having no taboo against their women smoking.

Yu Zhifa’s daughter-in-law, Yu Niuniu, also joined us. She is holding Gu Wuga. Her husband was further up the mountain helping her brother build a new house. The Yi really live on the margins of society in this region. Unable to communicate directly, Paul bewitched the children with magic tricks – he “ate” a 100-yuan note and then reproduced it from Gu Wuga’s ear. They’ll be talking about that for years.

DAY 9: The mule team had to trek around the west shore of Lake Cibi, but for the rest of us there was the comfortable and picturesque option of a boat across the water. This cut something in the order of 8 kilometers out of the day’s hike. A “guilty pleasure,” said Paul.

The largest part of today’s trail was across the plain south of Lake Cibi, passing very briefly through Eryuan County Town (where we stopped for a lunch of quite splendid noodles made, unusually, from corn flour) before reaching another mountain trail at Xia Longmen Village. In the picture above, caravan leader San Ge tests a bridge over the stream south of Eryuan. He decided against risking the mules on it – to this photographer’s intense disappointment!

Although it was another testing, 1,000-foot, late-in-the-day climb up to camp, many felt that this was the nicest site of the journey. Although the wind was swirling through the tops of the pine trees, at ground level it was quite still and we could hear almost no sound from the valley below. Yang Xiao said the sound of the wind in the pines had its own name in Chinese: 松浪 songlang, which literally means “pine wave”.

DAY 10: A short walk from camp brought us to this wonderful view over the Fengyu Valley. From here we descended to the valley floor, where we faced another rather difficult stretch of road leading into the town of Fengyu, itself (the mules bypassed the town to get camp set up early). It was market day in Fengyu and so we made the diversion to shop for fresh fruit, meat and vegetables. We also had lunch in Fengyu, though not at the place I had planned – that turned out to have been demolished, along with half the old main street. I enjoy the markets greatly and having been several times before I knew a few of the traders (the old lady selling the local tea slipped me a pound of her best stuff for half price while her daughter wasn’t around – the younger woman looked quite displeased when she arrived at the tail-end of this transaction). The group divided up into fruit and vegetable teams, while others simply wandered around photographing the activity. No tourists come to Fengyu and so there is no hostility to outsiders with cameras (yet); simply curiosity and an open welcome. In the afternoon, we walked south out of town and through a string of old villagers, which turned out to be a surprise hit with the group – it took twice as long as I expected, as every few steps there was another sight to photograph, or another person inviting us in to his courtyard for tea and snacks (who had to be resisted courteously).

Close to camp, Neil found a village shop with the desired Beer Supplies.

Camp was by the spring pool at Qingyuandong, a local beauty spot whose fame has spread a bit too far. When I first camped here in 2008, it was pristine and lovely, easily the favourite campsite of the group who hiked with me along a similar route between Dali and Shaxi. We found it covered in trash. Even after two hours’ clean-up work, it was still barely habitable. A terrible shame and, sadly, symptomatic of the effect of development on much of the Chinese countryside.

DAY 11: The trail from Qingyuandong onto the Cangshan mountain range is, to my mind, the finest of this journey. The flowers are late this year because of the drought in Yunnan, but the brilliant red Rhododendron floccigerum were starting to come out in force around 2,800 meters above sea level. You can see more of the flowers of Cangshan from just a week later in the season here.

Our route over Cangshan passed through the magnificent highland valley called Huadianba, which was the site of a nutty Great Leap Forward project to make the “mountains flower with industry.” All that’s left of that is a few crumbling buildings and a small Chinese traditional medicine enterprise, plus shadows of vainly ploughed fields. The valley is now home to herds of yak and goats, while mule teams from Eryuan come up to haul wood down the mountain.

We put the kitchen in one of the abandoned buildings to shield it from the wind, which swept down the valley all evening. The boss of the area stopped by the lecture us at length on the importance of fire control – even in non-drought times, this is the dry season and fires are banned from the mountain until the end of June. Less than a week later a wildfire devastated the mountainside on the far side of Lake Erhai, only 10 kilometers away from us.

At 2,900 meters above sea level, our last night was lit by a sky full of brilliant stars.

DAY 12: From Huadianba was only a half-day’s walk downhill to Xizhou and the end of our journey. We said our thank-yous to the mule team here on the mountain. They were great guys, never complained – even when we sent them the wrong way and made them camp far from water. Many thanks to San Ge and all the others for making the trip possible!

April 2, 2012

Yang Xiao just returned from a brief recce along the Tea Horse Trail between Lijiang and Dali. He made a few new friends along the way and took some nice pictures, too…

Shama Sijin belongs to the Yi ethnic group. His people moved to the Shaxi area from the Yi heartlands in Liangshan when Sijin was 8 years old. He’s now 47. His name means “Four Pounds” and refers to his weight at birth. He has two brothers: “Five Pounds” and “Six Pounds”.

This is Shama Sijin’s younger cousin, Sha Yuehua.

Yang Xiao met this old Naxi lady soon after starting out. She couldn’t speak a word of Chinese and so he didn’t get her name.

He Guocai, 69, digs potatoes outside the village of Shujing. He is supervised by fellow villager He Xiaoting, 4. Guocai belongs to the Lisu ethnic group and served for several years in a communist rebel army in the mountains on the border of Burma and China.

He Xiaoting’s grandparents He Xueren, 58, and He Shihua plough their field outside Shuijing. Their family belongs to the Naxi ethnic group.

Ru Yu picks broad beans outside the Hui Muslim village of Xifeng. Ru Yu belongs to the Bai ethnic group but married into Xifeng.

Ma Yingmei also helps with the broad bean harvest. Yingmei is a Hui Muslim from the village of Xifeng.

Our first trip this year was the fruit of a fresh collaboration with Asia Photo Tour, who organize “off the trail photo tours and workshops” in China. I met APT’s founder, Sharron Lovell, at the Dali International Photo Festival last October – we hit it off right away and Sharron asked if I could suggest a route that might suit some of her clients. Less than six months later, Sharron’s APT partner, Steve Radke, arrived with a multinational group of six photo enthusiasts. For the moment I’ll accompany the words with a few of my and Yang Xiao’s snaps, but I”ll gradually add in some of the group’s impressive work as it becomes available.

Among many things I got out of this trip was the kick up the backside I needed to upgrade the photo capability of this site. The photos below are now linked to a Lightbox function, so if you click on them you should get a better view. Please let me know if it works!

The group arrived at Lijiang Airport on March 19. We drove straight to Xizhou, where they spent the afternoon exploring the alleys and courtyards of this atmospheric old town. I’ll be writing more about Xizhou once we get some down time in the summer, in particular about the work being done by the people at the Linden Centre. Brian Linden was kind enough to show us around the town personally. Thanks to Brian, we gained access to some fascinating old courtyards and their remarkably friendly (and tolerant) inhabitants.

This is a rare sight – in fact, I’d never seen one of these before. On the wall is a record of the members of a local work team in 1964 and the “work points” allocated to each. Under the commune system, workers received points instead of money.

Brian took us into one home where a few elderly locals were enjoying their daily game of mahjong. Upstairs was preserved this lovely altar, which had miraculously survived the Cultural Revolution. On the right is just one of many details from the carvings.

Team member Paz gets into the broad bean field outside the Linden Centre, which you can see in the background.

Next morning, Sigrid and Petra rose early to catch sunrise from the platform in the Linden Centre’s rear courtyard.

Steve (right) is a professional photographer in Shanghai.

Steve shoots mainly black and white, so in his honour here’s one Yang Xiao took as the mule team departed Shaxi: as our photographers left the Linden Centre, Yang Xiao and an eight-strong mule team were leaving Shaxi to make the trek over the mountain to our rendezvous point by Cibi Lake. The picture shows Yujing Bridge, which crosses the Heihui River just outside Shaxi’s old east gate.

Our first stop was the old town of Fengyu, where Tuesday every week is market day.

Fengyu and its surrounding villages are mostly inhabited by Bai people.

On longer treks, we usually resupply at Fengyu Market. As we were only planning two days in the mountains on this journey, there was no need to buy anything on this occasion. I still wound up with bags of mushrooms and spicy roots, plus some tea samples from the local plantation – I usually feel obliged to buy something once I’ve stuck a camera in someone’s face.

In the meantime, the mules were probably around here, on the far side of the mountain in Shaoheng.

After a long session, plus lunch, in Fengyu, we drove to our lodgings on the north shore of Cibi Lake. I got up early the next morning to enjoy a walk around the lake, where I met this gentleman fishing for small fry. He didn’t catch a thing while I sat with him; after a few minutes, looking rather sour, he wordlessly got up and moved to another location.

I say mules, but we also had two horses in our team. Yang Xiao led them off the mountain to join us after breakfast, and after we loaded up we began the long, long climb up to the top of the range, where Yang Xiao and the mule men from Shaxi had pitched camp the previous evening.

We took lunch in the pine forest after a couple of hours’ steep hike.

We reached camp soon after 5 pm. It was just over 3,000 meters above sea level at this point and the wind howled all evening and all night.

The team huddled inside Yang Xiao’s improvised teepee.

Usually we’d cook and eat under the same shelter, but with the wind so strong we didn’t have room in the teepee-style tent. Yang Xiao put up a second shelter for the kitchen.

Yang Xiao poses with one of his four-legged friends on the downhill trail towards Shaxi.

The earth in much of northern Yunnan is a rich red colour, much like the central desert in Australia.

As we came off the ridge and into the Shaxi bazi itself, the evening sun lit up the rape and rice fields. The villages were also full of flowering pear and cherry trees. It’s a lovely time of year.

Our caravan returns into Shaxi across Yujing Bridge. Once we’d unloaded the mules, our team settled into the Laomadian, the former inn where caravan leaders stayed in the old days. The following day was market day in Shaxi, when Yi villagers from the surrounding hills come into town to trade with the Bai people of the plain. You can see a bit more info about that here.

Below is a shot from Rebecca Teh of Singapore. Rebecca is currently making the front running for this year’s Mule Prize!

And here’s another lovely mule shot from Caroline Maes…

The selection below comes from Sigrid Brede and Juergen Jentsch…

February 29: Tina and I witnessed some unusual and spectacular festivities in the village of Renliyi, just north of Xizhou. I’ve seen plenty of local festivals around China, and this one is definitely among the best.

One of the outstanding features of this benzhu festival is the cross-dressing it encourages. The idols from the local temple are each loaded into a wooden chariot, which is directed by a young man dressed as a young Bai woman.

These chariots then rumble through the narrow streets on their way to the old square. This is actually just part of the festival, which begins on the 5th day of the 2nd lunar month and ends on the 10th day. This particular event occurs on the afternoon of the 8th day.

Benzhu is the Chinese term for a religious tradition of the Bai people. Each Bai village has a benzhu temple, which houses what I think can best be described as the village’s guardian spirit, or spirits – also called benzhu in Chinese. These are supernatural beings, but not “gods” in the way, for example, the God of Wealth is understood. Idols like the latter can also be found in benzhu temples, though, as the Bai are not afraid to mix-and-match their religious devotions – I saw a temple recently that had halls to Sakyamuni, Lao Zi and Confucius, as well as a shrine to the Earth God set in the wall outside. The benzhu may be derived from actual people who performed some notable service to the village, and this was said to be the case in Renliyi.

I asked this young gentleman, Yang Songxin, why he had to dress up as a woman. “I don’t know,” he said. I asked a lot of people if they knew the meaning of this tradition, but none of them did. Tina speculated that it was a way of allowing the female side of the village to be represented without endangering the women by permitting their actual participation – and it is a dangerous affair, as you’ll see below.

The benzhu temple is down by Erhai Lake. On the 5th day of the 2nd month, the idols are collected by their chariots and transferred to temporary accommodation in a higher part of the village. On the 8th day, they are then loaded once more onto their transports and paraded into the heart of Renliyi. We were instructed to be careful not to linger in the road, as the chariots are likely to knock unwary by-standers out of the way.

The ancient stage in the  main square offered the best vantage point to watch the next part of the show.

We’d had lunch at “Brother” Yang’s place beforehand. He was very proud of his role in the festival, as his chariot was responsible for carrying the most important benzhu. According to Yang, the benzhu was a man who had done great things for the village at some point in history; unfortunately, he didn’t know what those things were or what the man’s name was. Neither did anyone else! This festival was all about fun; no one seemed to care too much about its deeper significance.

Yang’s comrades get the benzhu and his chariot ready for the show. I was struck by a resemblance between the benzhu and Benedict Cumberbatch in War Horse.

Tina initially  rubbished my theory, but now she’s not so sure…

This is where the fun really started. In the centre of the square stood an enormous, ancient banyan tree. The teams took turns pulling their chariot once around the tree as fast as they could. There was no “race” as such and no winner – it was just to show off and thrill the spectators. Some said that it was also an opportunity for eligible young men to demonstrate their prowess to the young ladies.

The notice pasted on the wall above this scene (you can only see the bottom of the six characters in this shot) gave a nice insight into the local socio-economy: it says, “Whoever Electrocutes Fish Will Go To Prison”. I’ve seen fishermen using electrical equipment to stun their prey in Hunan; not so far in Yunnan.

One of the chariots was so tall it took out someone’s telephone line.

Many Chinese traditions seem to be the exclusive preserve of the elderly these days, but this festival attracted spectators of all generations.

I’m sure everyone would have been disappointed if this hadn’t happened at least once. The chariot careered into a corner so quickly that it flipped onto its side and left its ladyboy mastress in a heap. No one was hurt, fortunately.

After the display, both crowd and chariots departed the square to escort the benzhu idols back to their temporary accommodation.

The procession was held up while local women made offerings to the benzhu in the street.

This lady burned incense before the principal benzhu‘s chariot, while the women below presented symbolic gifts of candies and other foodstuffs.

Every household had prepared incense sticks and burners filled with fragrant pine, and the way was also lined with tables of food offerings to the benzhu.

The chariots arrive in the square where the benzhu idols live for the duration of the festival.

The principal benzhu is restored to his place of honour at the centre of the altar.

While the men fixed up the idol hall, the village women busied themselves outside with more offerings and incense-burning.

These ladies were more interested in being photographed. Not sure what the hand gestures are all about, though…

Many thanks to Anthony at the Linden Centre for inviting us to join their small group.

This blog recounts a few of our adventures on a tentative research trip to Xishuangbanna, home to most of China’s ancient tea trees and possibly the origin of tea itself. We visited in late-November/early December 2012, travelling by bus from Kunming via Pu’er. You can see another (and more considered) account of this journey on Prof Gary Sigley’s blog.

November 30, Pu’er

A six-hour ride took us to Pu’er via Mojiang and Ning’er. There were no alarms on the road, which is in excellent condition: you can now drive from Kunming to Bangkok and be on a freeway practically all the way. Apparently in honour of the foreign passengers, the driver put a couple of Western movies on the DVD player: The Mechanic with Jason Statham followed by Salt with Angelina Jolie. Both were ultra-violent/ludicrous and I did wonder what parents of the various children on the bus thought about this x-rated fare.

Bear with me a moment while I try to preempt confusion  about the name of this place. Pu’er is, of course, synonymous with Yunnan’s most famous tea, which was named not for its point of origin, but for the great market where teas from all over southern Yunnan were traded from at least the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Now the first problem is that the tea market of Pu’er was not in Pu’er…except that it was. Gah! Let me try bullet-pointing this:

• Pu’er County, where the historic tea market was, is now called Ning’er County;
• Ning’er County is now part of a prefectural-level administrative region known as Pu’er City;
• The Pu’er City government is located in what’s called Simao District (pictured above), about 60 kilometers south of Ning’er County Town. Because the whole Pu’er City region is run from Simao District, the latter is often referred to simply as Pu’er. Our bus, for example, was listed as Kunming-to-Pu’er;
• And just to confuse matters still more, the modern tea market is in Simao District, i.e. still in “Pu’er” but not in the same town as the historic market.

Anyway, to sum up: if people are talking about Pu’er in historical terms, they mean Ning’er; if they’re talking about Pu’er today, they mean Simao District.

And if you’re still reading this nonsense, don’t worry – it should get less turgid from now on.

Pu’er was a pretty clean city, mostly built within the last five years from the look of things. Construction was still booming all around town, so it seems the tea business is still doing OK – there’s nothing here to attract tourists, but the climate is excellent and it’s clearly a decent option for young Chinese people in search of a more relaxed work-life balance. After dinner we stopped at People’s Square, where quite a large number of locals were enjoying the night air. A pirate copy (I presume) of Rise of the Planet of the Apes was showing on a giant screen, but no one was paying any attention. I’ve rarely seen a new town show its village roots so obviously, with people making their own entertainment in traditional style.

Besides various hawkers and games, there were several circles dancing to the accompaniment of lusheng (a multi-piped instrument I’ve always associated more with Guizhou than Yunnan) and a rough kind of banjo. The liveliest circle, however, was composed of prancing youngsters and multiple harmonicas. Our team’s very own mouth-organist, Prof Gary Sigley from the University of Western Australia, joined in and quickly developed the circle from seven or eight to around 30.

Chinese officialdom has latched on to the concept of the “tea and horse trail” partly because it offers a convenient narrative that binds these peripheral regions to the main course of Chinese historiography. This statue in Pu’er also reflects the imperial/colonial thrust of official history. Here we have Zhuge Liang, chancellor of the Kingdom of Shu-Han and one of China’s most revered historical figures, bearing a sprig from a tea tree. Zhuge Liang led an army into this region in the year 225 and popular legend has it that he brought tea with him; hence the ancient tea trees of Yunnan are all descended from the great man’s gift. And so we have an imperialist war of aggression neatly transformed into a beneficent visit, bringing civilization and economic advancement to the savages.

December 1, Pu’er to Jinghong

After breakfast we walked to the big tea market, the Cha Yuan Guangchang, where we spent a couple of hours not only trying tea but also gaping in horror at the market’s other main line of business. This tiger was carved from a single hardwood tree; it’s illegal to cut down this kind of tree in China anymore, so the Pu’er market’s vast collection of tasteless lions,  eagles and boardroom tables is supplied from the forests of Laos and Burma, instead. This tiger was asking 1.8 million yuan (US$285,000), while a table so big it would surely require its own office building cost a mere 1.6 million (US$250,000).

Gary bought a small bag of this yueguang bai (“moonlight white”), which hailed from the county of Jinggu (the first stage northwest of old Pu’er). The leaves are supposedly dried in the moonlight, rather than in the daytime. I’m not sure how that could work in practice – another research trip awaits! This is the fancy “single leaf” variety, which looks nice but actually doesn’t taste as good as the cheaper versions (IMHO).

In the meantime, two more of our team, Gary Price from the US and Jinpa from Lhasa, were testing teas from Zhenyuan, the next county north from Jinggu. The lady in the shop showed us a picture of a tea tree near her village that was supposed to be 2,700 years old. It’s walled off and you have to apply to the local government to get in to see it. If it is 2,700 years old, that wouldn’t do much for the Zhuge Liang story, but can we believe the numbers? I spoke to a scholar in Kunming who claimed to have been present at one “expert inspection” of an ancient tea tree: the experts had a hearty lunch with the local authorities and then went to see the tree, looked it up and down and said, yes, this tree must be very old. They then took a guess at its age and the local government wrote that down as gospel.

After the usual row about money with our local driver (note to would-be researchers: apply for extra grant money for a higher class of transport!),  we went to visit a rumoured Tea Museum 20 km away in Yingpanshan. This turned out to be located within the grounds of the Wanmu tea plantation, and charged 50 yuan per person at the gate. Inside, the museum was absolute bollocks and there was  nothing else except an appalling fake display of ethnic minority houses and dancing. Prof Sigley gave them a proper serve about it; water off a duck’s back, of course.

Next stop was Jinghong, the capital of Xishhuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, about four hours’ drive away and a wonderful place to visit in winter, as it’s just on the edge of the sub-tropics. This was my first visit since 2000 and I was quite dumbstruck by the scene as we drove across the Mekong and into the city. It was a tiny place in 2000. I remember walking across the river and getting completely lost among the fields, forest and tiny villages, finally begging a bed in a wooden house belonging to some Hani people who could speak even less Chinese than I could at the time. Impossible to imagine now. The north bank of the river is  a building site, with huge apartment blocks going up and plenty already complete, plus fancy restaurants and bars.  Over the water in the main city, I couldn’t recognize a thing. I think it’s grown even more than Lijiang. In the evening after dinner we went to the bar street by the river, which was quite appalling. The traffic was bad, too. Nice and warm in the evening, though, and it is pleasant to be by the river and enjoy the excellent local barbecue.

December 2, Jinghong

You can see tour boats at the left of this picture as well as a massive new suburb of Jinghong under construction in the distance. It’s possible to sail down the Mekong from here, but the big boats can no longer go upriver owing to nearby dams.

We spent most of the day in search of information about the old tea trails, but pretty much drew a blank. Although the Tea Horse Trail is also part of Xishuangbanna’s tourist pitch, and the town was certainly once a trading post and caravan stop, we found no one who knew of any existing trails or relevant information. So we stashed our heavy gear at the hotel and prepared to move on to the tea-producing areas themselves.

December 3, Nannuoshan

Nannuoshan is one of the “Famous Tea Mountains” of southern Yunnan, renowned for the quality and antiquity of its tea plantations. The people of Nannuoshan mostly belong to the Hani ethnic group, and they have been growing tea as far back as folk memory can go. We visited one of the local tea producers, whose family has been in the business since at least the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Nannuoshan’s prize resource is its forest of “ancient tea trees”. The tea pictured above is a recently planted cutting, of course, but serves to illustrate the “large leaf” variety (camellia sinensis var. assamica) that distinguishes Yunnan tea in general.

This is the “King Tea Tree” on Nannuoshan, one of the Jinghong area’s prime tourist attractions. We passed several groups coming and going during our visit. I daresay it’s only a matter of time before one has to buy a ticket to view this tree, which the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has declared to be 800 years old. Many of the trees on Nannuoshan are said to be at least 600 years old. Those that remain are especially precious, as many of the old trees were cut down after the Revolution, and especially after the beginning of Reform and Opening and the rise of a fashion for more closely planted tea bushes similar to the plantations in Sichuan and eastern China. More recently, fashion has swung back in favour of the “authenticity” of the ancient trees, which is good news for those villages lucky enough to still have some.

Interesting though the old trees were, my main aim in visiting Nannuoshan was to speak to this gentleman, who is the father-in-law of our host. His family has lived on the mountain for many generations, and his memory stretches back far enough to recall times when caravans still came to buy tea in his village. This was one of the true starting points for the Tea Horse Trail, and I wanted to see what, if anything, he could tell us about where the trails went – and what kind of people came to trade with the Hani tea farmers.

Much of what he knew came from his own father’s tales. In the 1930s and 40s, there was already a tea factory nearby, and so that was the first stop for most of the village’s harvest. From there, caravans would pick the roughly processed tea up and transport it either west to Menghai, where there were a number of further processing factories and trading houses, or directly east to Jinghong, from where the trail led north towards Pu’er. What I found most interesting about his recollections, however, was his memory of Tibetans coming to trade salt for tea. It’s extraordinary to think of Tibetans coming all this way to trade: ordinarily, the Tibetan tea caravans would only go as far as Zhongdian or perhaps Lijiang, where they would sell their own goods and buy tea to take on the two-month journey back to Lhasa. To continue all the way to Xishuangbanna meant making a round trip that would take a full year – and that’s assuming the Tibetans stopped here. Perhaps they continued trading all the way into Laos or Burma – after all, the salt they carried to Nannuoshan was most likely bought in northwest Yunnan; it certainly wasn’t brought from Tibet, where salt is a scarce commodity.

Where any of the old trails intact? Sadly, he thought not. With the modern road now running past the foot of the mountain, any footpaths to Menghai or Jinghong would long since have been overgrown. Having already drawn a blank at Jinghong, we decided to continue to Menghai and see what we could find there.

There was a small museum of Hani culture by the main road at Nannuoshan. We enjoyed this picture from one of the approved local artists, showing the Hani welcoming progress into their backward land. If only he had gone the whole way and depicted Zhuge Liang at the wheel!

December 4, Menghai to Meng’a

Menghai was only a short bus ride away. Like Jinghong, the town was in the throes of a massive building campaign. But whereas Jinghong greets visitors with sculptures of elephants (the nearby Wild Elephant Park is probably the main tourist attraction), Menghai has decided to build its image around the tea trade: the road into town was lined with caravan-related sculptures like those pictured above.

Oh dear, oh dear. “The Tea Horse Trail Starts Here”, says the sign. This, declared Prof Sigley, was the worst theme park he had ever seen. I found it hard to disagree, especially given the whopping 90 yuan entrance price.

The boss was very obliging (not to the extent of letting us off the price of admission, mind you), so I’m sorry to slag off his theme park, but it really was a load of old cobblers. He told us this map had upset some officials and tourist developers from rival parts of the Trail. Frankly, I’m not surprised – they may just have been upset on the grounds of geographical and historical accuracy.

This representation of the ancient caravan trail had been constructed from stones “acquired” from several different parts of the trail in Yunnan. In other words, the real trail had been despoiled to create this mockery.

Amidst all the fakery and nonsense, the boss had actually collected some quite interesting artifacts in the course of an eight-month journey from Menghai to Lhasa. If only he’d given them to a proper museum. He said the theme park had cost 60 million yuan (US$9.5 million) and was designed to give tourists “the whole picture” of the Tea Horse Trail.

“Did it work?” I asked Tina.

“No,” she said.

Although the theme park did have some details about the old tea trading houses in Menghai, which date from the late-Qing/early Republican era, it didn’t have anything to suggest how we should proceed in tracking the caravan trail north. The tea trail theme park boss was adamant that the caravans all went first to Jinghong, but I couldn’t believe that. There is an important and very old ferry crossing over the Mekong at Simao (not Simao District, but a port town on the river of the same name – I know, I’m sorry), and a quick glance at the map showed that a route that ran from Menghai to Pu’er via Simao would save at least a day and probably two on the journey. It wouldn’t necessarily make sense to go via Jinghong if you were heading to Pu’er to trade.

So we hoisted our backpacks and started hiking north, aiming to interview people along the way to see what, if any, memories of the caravan trade might persist. The photos above and below show me practicing my field research by joining in a game of tuo luo with some Dai gentleman who had obviously left the village women to get on with the work. The aim is to knock the spinning top out of the square with your own top – and if your own top not only knocks out your rivals, but also remains spinning in its place, then you get maximum points. I scored nil, but did at least learn that the older men present could remember caravans passing both ways through their village in the 1950s. The Dai here seem to speak little Chinese, by the way, so it was pretty difficult to converse. Our informants reckoned the old route lay through Meng’a and Mengwang, and reckoned that while the old trails would have been replaced by the modern road as far as Mengwang, from there it would be possible to hike a mountain trail all the way to the ferry at Simao.

Given our limited time and disinclination to hike along a road, we waved down a local bus and squeezed on with an assortment of Hani, Dai and Lahu peasants. They were friendly folk and told us that we should consider going to a place called Mannuo, a Bulang village not far from Mengwang that had a large number of ancient tea trees. The bus took us as far as Meng’a, a truly dreadful little town.

I’ve been to a lot of awful Chinese country towns, but Meng’a almost took the biscuit. What a dump it was. But the sun was setting and there were no more buses that day, so we found rooms in a scummy lodge and went to bed early.

December 5, Mannuo

Mengwang was only another hour and a bit on from Meng’a, the road twisting and turning as it rose into the mountains close to the border of Xishuangbanna and Pu’er City. Rubber plantations covered many of the slopes, and it was hard to see how any foot trail could have survived. Mengwang was the end of the line, however, and from here it looked as if we could make the river in a day – assuming we could find the way. The locals weren’t unfriendly, but it was awfully difficult to strike up a conversation, let alone ask directions. Given what we’d heard about Mannuo, however, we decided that we’d hike the 6-7 km up to that village first. It also seemed reasonable to suppose that if Mannuo had ancient plantations, then they must also have had a path to haul their tea to the ferry at Simao. We decided to see if we could go that way.

Mengwang was a principally Dai area. Like dominant peoples everywhere, the Dai seemed to have taken the good land in the valleys and left smaller ethnic groups such as the Bulang and Lahu to scrape a living in the mountains.

The entire valley floor below Mengwang was covered by an enormous banana plantation.

Mannuo is principally a Bulang village, although there is also a small Han community on its periphery. Although it might look quite “traditional” in this picture, these houses are all modern constructions. Until little more than 10 years ago, most houses in Mannuo were still grass huts. According to the village chief, one person in the village was always deputed to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they put fires out properly.

The Bulang are not a numerous people: there are only around 100,000 of them in China and a few thousand more in Burma and Thailand. By tradition, they are supposed to have been the earliest inhabitants of southwest Yunnan. Some Chinese anthropologists also suggest that they were they earliest people to drink tea. According to oral tradition in Mannuo, they were the original inhabitants of the valley around Mengwang. When the first Dai came to the area, the Bulang regarded themselves as “elder brothers”. To help the weak newcomers, the Bulang gave them the best land and moved up the mountains, where only they had the ability to survive. It’s a nice way to rationalise a process that probably wasn’t nearly so harmonious.

Prof Sigley walked into the village first and immediately made friends with the village chief. He recently set up a small cooperative to try and make more of the village’s ancient tea trees. As it had taken most of the morning for us to hike up to Mannuo, and as it seemed like a very interesting place, we asked if we could stay the night. Of course, he said.

The chief took us for a tour around the village. He said this was their biggest and probably oldest tree, though he had no idea how old it might really be. He said the elders in the village had no knowledge of when the trees were planted. This particular specimen was almost as thick at its base as the “King Tea Tree” on Nannuoshan.

We visited this gentleman, Xu Zhihong, who is part of the Han community on the edge of the village. He gave us some of his gu hua cha, made from leaves picked just four days previously. Tina reckoned it was the best tea she tasted on the whole trip (and that included a very expensive, 25-year-old Pu’er – which frankly took the “earthy” taste a bit too far).

Then we went to the home of the village chief’s parents, where we enjoyed a pot of really traditional Bulang tea: the leaves simply thrown raw into a pot of boiling water. The chief said on balance the villagers probably liked this kind of tea best. In the past, he said, the Bulang of Mannuo paid little attention to the details of making or brewing tea; if it tasted good, that was all that mattered. The fine distinctions of Pu’er tea were alien to them, but now they needed to learn about the market’s demands so that they could make more of their good fortune in having so many old trees. What I found interesting about this was how it emphasized how little the traditions of these ancient tea producers have to do with the modern promotion of Pu’er tea, packaged as a local cultural artifact with a long ancestry, when it fact it’s more a result of requirements and processes imported to the region by Han outsiders.

We had dinner with the village chief and his wife, who really rolled out the red carpet for us. We were presented with wild boar and a vivid red dish of cooked pork tossed in raw pig’s blood. The chief also got out a small bottle of his home-made firewater, but he was a civilized character and didn’t force it on us. It’s refreshing to encounter this kind of hospitality, so different to the “official” version of local culture peddled to tourists in Jinghong. There, one is plied with booze and, if one demurs, lectured on the importance of respecting local traditions – which apparently demand guests get roaring drunk to show their appreciation of their hosts’ warm-heartedness. This, of course, is actually the drinking culture of Chinese officialdom, the driving force behind tourism development.

December 6, On the Trail to the Mekong

In the old days, said our host, the villagers of Mannuo did haul their tea over the mountains to the Mekong. They would set out at night in order to arrive at the river early in the morning. They would cross in rafts to the town of Simao on the east bank, sell their tea, and then return to the village by evening. Caravans would also sometimes come direct to the village to trade. The old folk spoke of strange people who travelled with the caravans; the village chief said he believed they must have meant Tibetans.

We meant to get an early start, but the village chief insisted on killing a chicken and cooking it for our breakfast, which was thus delayed until 10 a.m. Besides the chicken and left-over wild boar, there was also a small bowl of a dark, fragrant meat. “What’s this?” asked Tina. “A small bird,” said the chief, “Be careful when you eat it, there might still be pieces of shrapnel.”

The chief was most unwilling to tell us how we might hike directly to the ferry over the Mekong. It’s often this way in rural China: people want to direct you onto the main roads, perhaps because they are concerned for your safety; perhaps because they think they if you get lost and into trouble, they will be held responsible. I wore him down in the end, though. Just as we prepared to depart, he finally spelled out which villages we should aim for and pointed us in the right direction, the led us down the hillside for the first few hundred yards. It wasn’t quite the old route, he said, but that wasn’t possible any more. I could well believe him – the thickness of the forest where the slopes were uncultivated made it obvious that any trail would disappear in short order if it wasn’t well trodden.

Much of the day was spent guessing which way was best. People were hard to find; people who could speak intelligible Chinese still rarer. After one wrong turning on the way back down into the valley, we had to ford this river to avoid a lengthy double-back.

Once across the river, we began the climb into the mountains between Mengwang and the Mekong. The only available trails were like this one pictured above: cut just wide enough for tractor-trailers to haul logs and other mountain produce, and good enough for motorbikes to get in and out of the most remote villages. They wound this way and that and we made very slow progress. As the sun began to set, we were still nowhere near the river and had passed no villages for several hours. There were no clear spaces to camp at all. About an hour before dark, we got lucky – the only grassy space for miles around appeared below the road. It belonged to an old Yi couple who lived nearby and didn’t have the energy to dig the heavy clay on this patch. They welcomed us to pitch camp, showed us where we could get clean water, and invited us to stop by and watch TV at their place. Everyone has TV.

December 7, Simao

We were up at dawn and on the road soon after. As things turned out, we had camped at the only possible place, which was still almost three hours short of the river.

The town on the west bank was a weird looking place.

Locals seemed to have engaged in a competition to see who could build the most outlandish mansion. No one seemed to have a job, however, and there wasn’t much business going on. It turned out the town was populated by people resettled by the dam developers. They had been given a handsome payoff to build new homes, but now had nothing else to do.

Our team was down to just Prof Sigley, Tina and me by this time. We took the ferry across the Mekong to the river port of Simao, now a depressed sort of place as the dam had cut off most of the river traffic from the south.

Health and Safety wouldn’t approve of this trip, noted Prof Sigley. While it had been cool, even cold up in the mountains, down by the river it was blazing hot. We were parched by the time we had hiked up into town and found a small place to have lunch. “Do you have any cold beer?” I asked the boss lady. “Of course not,” she said, “It’s winter.”

Anyway, I found some cold-ish beer in a nearby shop. From Simao we got a bus back to Pu’er, then another bus on to Jinghong to pick up our stuff. From there, it was a short flight back home to Dali and a well-earned big pot of tea!

I think our trip confirmed my thoughts about there being a caravan trail from Menghai to Simao and then to Pu’er. Besides which, Mannuo must have been producing tea and selling it northwards for centuries, so it is just as much as starting point for the Tea Horse Trail as Nannuoshan or Menghai. It was fascinating to see people drinking tea in surely its rawest form, just as it was to think of those Tibetan traders visiting these far-flung places all those years ago.

Yang Xiao recently accompanied a Tibetan mule team into the Balagezong area on the border of Yunnan with Sichuan. He sent these pix straight after returning to Shangri-la.

The caravan consisted of 11 horses and mules, whose main task was hauling gear for a film crew shooting a promo video for Balagezong.

Yang Xiao got to tag along on the strength of being mates with the director.

The destination was the rock formation pictured above, known to locals as the “Natural Pagoda”.

The team trekked two days in and two days out, making a small circuit but camping at the same point on both the inward and outward journeys.

Unlike the kora trail, which we attempted in autumn 2009, this route is easily accessible by pack animals, and Yang Xiao says it can be extended further into the range and made into a lengthy circuit in at least two different directions.

As well as the film crew, local musicians accompanied the caravan (it was a musical promo).

The muleteers put on a show around the camp fire on the second day.

The people of Balagezong originally hail from the Batang area, which is now part of western Sichuan. There are no records of when exactly they decamped to this remote spot: old villagers put it anywhere between 400 and 1,000 years ago.

The old village is now mostly deserted, as the people have moved to more modern homes at the bottom of the valley, where a sealed road now connects them to Zhongdian.

The tourism area was created by a local boy made good, making this an unusual example of a “scenic attraction” not contracted by outsiders.

The prime attractions of Balagezong should remain relatively quiet, as it takes more time and effort to get there than most tour groups would allow. There are easily accessible walking routes  in the valley, plus a large new hotel.

These girls were brought in from Aba and Ganzi to liven up the video.

We’ve been planning a return trip to Balagezong ever since 2009, but the road-building between Zhongdian and Deqin has made access difficult for the last two years. Starting next year, however, things should be more or less back to normal, so we’re hoping to revisit the range and explore more of its lovely alpine lakes. If you’re interested and in VERY good shape, do let us know!

Yang Xiao has been making the most of the last days of autumn, exploring some new routes close to the border between Yunnan and Sichuan. He  sent these pix from a six-day hike northwest of Zhongdian. YX reckons this is a relatively accessible route: although it reaches 4,000+ meters above sea level, the gradients are not too steep and the trails are in good condition, making it similar in difficulty to the Mt. Tianbao hike.

Yang Xiao set off from close to Langdu, hiking towards the northwest. He was aiming for a pass due west, from where he expected to regain the main road back into Zhongdian. The first day was at relatively low altitude, passing through some good pasture to the lake pictured below:

This is Wudi Hu, where Yang Xiao chilled out for a day.

From Wudi Hu, Yang Xiao headed up towards the pass.

For his third night on the trail, he camped by this stretch of water, known as Bengong. Conditions were already deteriorating.

The following morning, YX tried to continue upwards, but despite the sunshine he ran into ever-deepening snow. As the weather began to turn, he thought better of his original plan and shifted direction towards the north.

He spent his fourth night close to this point. One of the outstanding features of this trek, he said, was the long stretch of primeval forest on this day. You can see some of the deep, thick green in the background of the photo above, and a close-up below:

According to Baima Qupei, a Tibetan herder Yang Xiao met later, wolves inhabit this forest – this was eyewitness testimony, by the way, not rumour.

Pictured above are Baima Qupei and his wife, Larong Zhuoma.

The fifth day took Yang Xiao back into herding country and through some lovely pastures. He camped close to the spot from where he took the picture below, then hiked out the next day to the main road between Zhongdian and Xiangcheng: a place familiar to us from New Long March 6, when we hiked that way in summer 2007.

This is the first in an occasional, but surely lengthy series in which we explore shorter trails in and around the Dali area. For the weekend of October 22-23, we set off from Xizhou to cross Mt. Cangshan.

The first part of this route follows a trail blazed by Kublai Khan’s army in the 13th century, but more recently upgraded courtesy of the Great Leap Forward. This stone was erected (accidental symbolism, surely?) in August 1958 to commemorate the heroic aspiration of the labouring masses, whose lofty spirit and ceaseless toil would make the mountaintops ring with the sound of machinery. The fallow land would grow fruitful and welcome multitudes, thanks to the Great Communist Party, Mao Zedong, etc..

Anyway, back to the beginning with a fine omen as viewed from the window of Chateau Red Rock.

The first part of the trail follows an easy dirt path, offering great views back over Xizhou and Lake Erhai.

The overall elevation gain is around 800 meters, and about half of that was accomplished in the first hour – opening up a view over most of Erhai and the Dali plain.

Further up, the route narrows and there are some nice sections of stone-paved trail. A 10-strong mule team passed us at this point, but the animals detoured along a secondary path that was hidden from my prying camera.

With most of the climb done by midday, the rest of the day’s trail was a gentle stroll along the ridge path leading into the ‘V’ above.

Looking back, you can see the flat, wide trail to the right, and our last sight of Erhai in the distance.

The remains of the stone road built in the late 1950s became clearer as we entered the broad pasture called Huadianba. This was the focal point of the GLF plan: 250-hectares of virgin land to be transformed by industry, mining, agriculture and herding.

It was a fiasco. The land was totally unsuitable for farming, and since only pack animals could negotiate the road up and down, it wasn’t much use for industrial development, either. Rather than multitudes of happy labouring folk, Huadianba is now home to this yak herd. The yaks seemed contented.

It’s terrific for camping, though! Tina tucked in early, after which an unseasonal downpour began. It lasted all night and all the next morning, after which we decided not to press on; instead, we retreated back the way we had come (camera stowed deep in the dryest recesses of my pack, so no more pix). We shall return!