T
o travel in China is to
experience a country
where nothing is standing
still. Roads are being
carved out of the mountainside in
every corner of this vast country.
China’s progress is apparent in
every building rising into the sky, in
every city sprawling into the rural
countryside. To find peace amongst
the chaos, where one is able to sit,
enjoy and watch, is very hard to do.
But hidden in the south-west of
the country, China’s Yunnan province
is opening up to a new kind of tourism
– a more cultural, experience-led
felt truly like “real” China, linking its
past and present.
In the Yunnan province, Lijiang
has been well and truly discovered.
But four kilometres to the north-
west of the old town of Lijiang, at
the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow
Mountain, lies a spectacular village:
the old town of Shuhe. Once famous
for its leatherwork, Shuhe is now a
fascinating peek into old China. Like
Shangri-La in the north, Shuhe was
a stop on the Tea Horse Road over
which Tibetan horses and Chinese
tea were traded for centuries. Today
that heritage is still in evidence, with
Amid China’s incredible forward propulsion lies a
peaceful corner that fuses the country’s past and
present.
Sonia Jackson
sets out to explore Yunnan
province with her husband, her children, a bicycle,
some horses and some very warm clothes.
Photography:
Sonia Jackson
kind, be it luxury or local, a pleasant
change from the tourism of old. With
Myanmar and Laos to the south, and
the vast Tibetan Plateau to the north,
subtropical villages break into high-
altitude towns in the foothills of the
Himalayas, where yaks, prayer flags
and monasteries abound.
Fifty-two of China’s 56 minority
ethnic groups live in Yunnan; tribes,
dialects and beliefs are so varied
that groups from one valley speak a
language foreign to their neighbours
in the next. Taking advantage of this
fascinating geographic and cultural
mix, we ventured into what – to us –
tr vel
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