Early mornings in downtown Lijiang come as standard with picture-postcard views of "Old China" – curving cobbled lanes, swollen red lanterns hanging from upturned eaves and water gurgling along willow-lined channels beneath quaint humped bridges. Then, as its townsfolk awaken and shopfront shutters open, the streets and eateries fill with chattering tourists, and the spell is interrupted.
Here in south-west China’s Yunnan Province, Lijiang’s Dayan, or Old Town, eagerly embraces a daily onslaught of visitors. It wasn’t always this popular. In the late 1980s, when I first visited, just a handful of austere hotels and rudimentary guesthouses serviced adventurous backpackers. Earlier still, Lijiang lured a few hardy adventurers and botanist-explorers, such as Joseph Rock, who wrote almost a dozen features for National Geographic magazine in the 1920s and 1930s.
Drawn initially to its extraordinary biodiversity, Rock encountered a region of striking beauty and strange cultures. Bordered by Tibet, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, Yunnan remains one of China’s most exotic provinces. Of the country’s 55 officially recognised “minority nationalities”, almost half can be found here. Today, it’s an alluring and popular destination for domestic, and a fair number of foreign, tourists.
It was the Naxi, an ethnic minority group with a traditionally matriarchal society, who so captivated Rock that he ended up residing near Lijiang, the “capital”, for more than 20 years. The town thrived with the centuries-old Tea Horse Road, a venerable trade route where hardy caravans transported goods, tea in particular, to Tibet and returned with prized sturdy horses.
Today, tourism rather than tea fills the town’s coffers. Gazing down at Dayan’s picturesque sea of grey-tiled roofs from the terrace of Amandayan, Aman Resorts’ new luxury property cresting a town-centre hill, I’m absorbing the bigger picture. Assistant manager Jonathan Liu points towards the impeccably restored Mu Mansion – the erstwhile palace of Lijiang’s ruling chieftains – and explains why they never surrounded it with a wall. “When enclosed by a rectangle, the Chinese character for their family name – Mu – also resembles the character for ‘trapped’ or ‘imprisoned’. So symbolically that’s very inauspicious.”
Liu explains how Yunnan’s serious earthquake in 1996 changed everything. Much of Dayan was destroyed or badly damaged. “But when the media turned up, they were amazed to find many Naxi feasting away,” he continues. “Our mentality meant we celebrated survival almost like a rebirth.”
Intense media coverage sparked nationwide curiosity and wonder, too, because Lijiang’s arresting backdrop is the 5,600-metre-high Mount Yulong, or Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
Parts of Dayan were rebuilt in accordance with strict regulations stipulating a traditional appearance, if not entirely traditional methods. Accordingly, Amandayan’s serene cluster of suites, courtyards and an imposing reception hall with immense pine pillars resembles a venerable, almost palace-like complex, its construction chiming with the old town’s vernacular.
Dayan’s charming, traffic-free lanes and alleys ribbed with streams make a pretty place to explore at leisure. Among the cheek-by-jowl terraced and courtyard houses with screened gateways and carved wooden window frames stand dozens of appealing cafes and restaurants. Shops and boutiques sell everything from Naxi drums (invariably tapped by young women simultaneously checking their phones) to costumes, jewellery, air-dried meats and bricks of fine Yunnan tea.
It’s all avowedly commercial, and some feel the place that once sold an idyll has now sold its soul. “Bar Street” sells Lijiang’s most lively evening entertainment: clubby bars with swirling lights and strobes, faux folk dancing and middle-of-the-road crooners all soaked up by a cheery Chinese clientele. It’s down-to-earth fun and no one pretends otherwise.
You can easily get away from such attractions. On Dayan’s southern edge, the bustling Zhongyi Market is among the most authentic parts of town, where locals come for real, practical shopping. When dressed in traditional finery, some Naxi and Lisu people look as though they might have strayed from a film set.
To the north, Black Dragon Pool Park offers one of China’s classic views – glassy water, a dainty pagoda, an arched bridge and the snow-capped Mount Yulong – favoured by honeymooners and couples posing in pristine ethnic costumes. Deeper in Lijiang’s pastoral hinterland, Yuhu Village (where Rock’s old home is now a modest little museum) lends an earthier glimpse of local life, with distinctive so-called “monkey-rock” houses and pack horses tethered in side lanes.
I head 70 kilometres west out of Lijiang to Shigu, a modest village standing beside a sharp turn of the Yangtze River. It’s no ordinary bend, though. The Chinese know it as the “First Bend” of their greatest river – and Asia’s longest – on its journey from the Tibetan Plateau. Here, instead of continuing south into Indo-China, it turns north, and eventually winds all the way across China to its delta in the East China Sea.
Shigu means “drum”, its name derived from a drum-shaped memorial tablet recording how local Naxi helped defeat an invading Tibetan army here in 1548. Another memorial statue commemorates heroic locals helping 18,000 Red Army troops cross the river in 1936 during the epic Long March. As for the Yangtze, the best views are from above the village. Discrete, shrubbery-cloaked paths wind up the hillside to informal viewpoints, the elegant, sweeping bend framed by muscular hills and fields of mustard and rapeseed.
Roughly halfway between here and Dali (and well away from the main highway stretching on south to Kunming) lies Shaxi. Huddled in a pretty valley encircled by pine-clad hills, this small town once prospered on the Tea Horse Road’s caravans. The town is well past its heyday, with pictures testifying to its pitiful decline by the early 2000s. Fortunately, local authorities and a leading Swiss university developed an ambitious plan to restore Shaxi’s principal square, the Sideng, and kick-start the broader aim of conserving the town’s crumbling heritage. Today, it’s reminiscent of Lijiang, but without the relentless crowds. After the day-trippers have gone, Shaxi reverts to its default sleepy air, with stylishly rustic Sideng restaurants and cafes being a touch more personable and friendly.
Unlike Lijiang, the Shaxi Valley’s population comprises mainly the Bai ethnic minority, Yunnan’s second-largest ethnic group. Important Bai settlements often had a prominent public theatre, and Shaxi’s now stands restored, yet with an almost artful patina of age and grime, its jutting stage overlooking the main square. Most of the surrounding one-time inns, stable yards and tradesmen’s premises are now guesthouses and cafes. The town’s principal 17th-century temple is now a diverting museum explaining Shaxi’s rehabilitation and showcasing some of its architectural finesse. Collectively they comprise what the World Monuments Fund describes as “the most complete surviving example of a trading centre along the historic Tea and Horse Caravan Trail.”
One major change is that Shaxi’s celebrated Friday market has been moved to one long street in the newer part of town. On this day, Shaxi sees a definite – and quite justifiable – spike in visitors. Half the valley, it seems, descends on the town in the morning for its vast earthy array of meats, great mounds of produce, utensils, clothes, toys and sweets, knick-knacks and even a bit of knife-sharpening. Humble-looking noddle stalls do a roaring trade (one provides me with probably the simplest, tastiest and cheapest meal I have ever eaten) with hearty chilli-, garlic- and coriander-infused concoctions, served hot or cold.
Yet it’s the region’s minority people who add so much interest and vitality. Along with the local Bai, many Yi people descend from remoter villagers to stock up for the week. Yi women in particular boast striking bonnets with cowls and boldly coloured and embroidered skirts and tunics. More than anything, it feels like an idealised, almost sepia-tinged version of China, still somehow thriving in the modern age.
None of this is lost on film and documentary makers. Strolling along a cobbled lane and out through the town’s East Gate one morning, I reach a pretty humped bridge where a Bai “princess” atop a white stallion is being serenaded by keen minstrels and youngsters in traditional clothes. A drone has just completed some aerial shots – the scene is bathed in dazzling sunshine, with hints of autumn beneath clear blue skies, and this little enclave looks particularly fetching.
Later that day, I walk well beyond town, beside the river and through fields dotted with harvesting villagers. Orderly hamlets are scattered across the tranquil valley, and their spacious, rammed-earth houses suggested a modest but distinct prosperity. Up in the hills about 10km to the north – there’s a good road, but locally guided hikes can be arranged – lies Shibaoshan, or Stone Treasure Mountain. Hidden away among three distinct “mountains”, this complex of Buddhist grottoes, temples and shrines escaped the worst excesses of the destructive Cultural Revolution.
More than a millennium old, the site and its art reflects how Buddhism reached China from India through trade. For the most part, it remains a beautifully peaceful place that’s rarely overwhelmed by visitors. Steps and paths weave through the forest to various sites, some secreted in deeply scalloped cliffs and clefts, others perched beside weirdly eroded “turtle-back” rocks and boulders. Little wonder it’s still considered sacred.
If you go
The flight Etihad flies from Abu Dhabi to Chengdu from Dh2,090 return, including taxes. The flight time is eight hours.
The package Cox & Kings offers a tailor-made eight-day/seven-night itinerary to Lijiang and Shaxi, from £1,495 (Dh7,222) per person, based on a twin share. The itinerary includes domestic flights, all transfers, three nights in Lijiang, three nights in Shaxi and one night in Chengdu, with daily breakfasts and excursion to Shigu and Shibaoshan.
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