The following is an excerpt from “Trail Tribulations” by Paul Mooney, South China Morning Post

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Ouyang Shangxian worked briefly on the trail. His classic Shaxi courtyard house is indicative of the wealth that people in the tea trade once enjoyed. At 70, Ouyang’s memory is fading and he struggles to remember details.

“Tibetans would sell Chinese herbs and yak hair on the square,” he says. “And they used the money to buy salt, which they took back to Tibet.”

Holding his father’s wooden horse saddle,Ouyang recalls muleteers staying at his home. “Most people who stayed here were friends and paid no money.”

Ouyang says his grandfather and father were also muleteers. It was a profession that took his father’s life, in 1947.

“My father went to Weishan, where he was killed by Bai and Han because he carried a lot of money,” he says.

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To read more about Paul’s journey the Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road, click here.
Photos by Paul Mooney

The following post is an excerpt from Catherine Bodry, a writer for AOL’s Gadling Travel Blog.

Gadling’s last stop on Yunnan’s ancient tea horse road was Shangri-la, China, a high-altitude Tibetan city named after the mythical town in John Hilton’s “Lost Horizon.” Full of snapping prayer flags in high-altitude sunlight, the town has only been called Shangri-la since 2001, when a successful marketing venture changed its name from Zhongdian to appeal to adventure-seekers. Most Chinese still refer to it as Zhongdian, though it’s worth noting that its Tibetan name is Gyalthang.

Shangri-la’s residents are mostly Han and Tibetan, and it’s common to see red-cheeked Tibetan-Chinese dressed in traditional clothing. The architecture, especially in the countryside, is uniquely Tibetan: large, square, three story homes house animals on the ground level, with human living quarters above. New homes are still being built in this style. Wood stoves (frustratingly drafty) occupy space in every restaurant, home, and guesthouse, often with the staff huddled around them.

Things to see and do

Like Dali and Lijiang, Shangri-la has an “old city,” with the usual cobblestones and new-old architecture, as well as a very Chinese “new city,” full of traffic and electronics shops. The Thangka Academy is a center in the old town for Tibetan culture and learning. Students, usually orphans, are taught the ancient art of Thangka, an intricate style of Buddhist painting of deities. Foreigners can study Tibetan or meditate here.

Though Shangri-la’s narrow, old-city streets are pleasant for a wander, it’s the town’s surrounds that make the trip worthy.

The Songstam Monastery houses monks of the yellow hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It’s the biggest Tibetan monstery in China, and certainly worth a visit. Besides monks and temples, you’ll see juniper burning in the mornings, pigs snuffing around the dusty grounds, tourists snapping photos, and a hodge-podge of colorful buildings built on several levels.

The monastery was built during the Qing Dynasty in 1679, and now houses 700 monks as well as 11 temples. In the tea-horse road days, the monastery stored tea, waited for the price to rise, and then sold it for a profit. The complex was destroyed by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and has since been rebuilt, though remnants of ancient mud walls still linger.

Beyond the monastery is Napa Hai, a lake and wetland with misty mountains backing them. More than a dozen Tibetan villages surround the lake, which is also home to black-necked cranes. We rented mountain bikes from one of the many bike rental shops in town, and road the often-muddy, sometimes treacherous roads out to the lake. A new highway being built ought to smooth the ride out significantly.

To read full posts from Gadling’s trip to Yunnan, click here.

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Contact Catherine Bodry at catherine.bodry@weblogsinc.com. Photos by Gadling.

Our journeys are great ways to enjoy the beauty of China’s countryside as well as the dynamism and history of its cities, but they are also unique opportunities to meet inspiring and unforgettable people.

During a recent visit to Shangri-la, we were honored to meet Lobsang Khedup, a Tibetan monk who is not only working to help impoverished youth from the Tibetan regions of Yunnan, but who is also helping preserve the 1,800-year-old tradition of thangka painting.

Thangka painting is the traditional Tibetan style of painting deities using paint made from local minerals. Deeply imbued with the ethos of Tibetan Buddhism, this painting style focuses on the facial expression of the subject. Ideally, the longer one looks at a thangka painting, the more subtleties emerge from the deity’s facial expression.

A native of Shangri-la, Lobsang is a thangka painting master. An average painting takes him around a year to complete. The high degree of detail and difficulty of thangka painting combined with advancements in printing and copying over the last century have resulted in a dwindling number of thangka masters.

Lobsang started the Tibetan Thangka Academy in 2008 and now has 16 students from the countryside who are studying under him and another master.

Students at the academy not only study the art of thangka painting, they also take classes in Buddhism and English. Their education is provided free of charge, with funds provided by the Shangrila Association.

“When painting, your feelings are the most important,” Lobsang told us in his study. “But you also need knowledge and wisdom – without education you cannot paint.”

In addition to teaching its Tibetan students the art of thangka painting, the academy offers classes to the general public in both thangka and traditional Chinese painting styles.

Lobsang has done such a good job of preserving the dying thangka art that the Shangri-la government has commended and supported the academy. We admire Lobsang not just as an amazing painter and socially minded individual, but as someone savvy enough to navigate the difficult political landscape in his home.

Teeming with geographical, ethnic and biological diversity – plus some of the best food in China - Yunnan has always been one of our most popular destinations.

The charming small towns of Lijiang, Dali, Jinghong and Shangri-la and the Naxi, Bai, Yi, Dai, Hani and Tibetans who live there have provided our clients with unforgettable travel experiences and new insights into China.

These popular places aside, Yunnan is brimming with countless lesser-known destinations that are also well worth a visit. One of our favorites is the former trading outpost of Shaxi in Yunnan’s northwest.

Blessed with blue skies, sunshine and cool breezes year-round and located in a verdant mountain valley with no airport, tall buildings, car traffic or noticeable pollution, Shaxi is almost too good to be true.

For centuries Shaxi was a busy trade hub linking the Yunnan and Tibet portions of the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan route. Traders coming up from the south on the route would bring tea, cloth, alkali and daily necessities, while Tibetans would bring yak furs and traditional medicines.

In addition to being a convenient halfway point for Yunnanese and Tibetan traders, Shaxi also had an important commodity of its own: salt from the nearby Misha salt wells.

The majority of Shaxi’s residents belong to the Bai ethnic group, who are known for their hospitality and their green thumbs. When the caravans were passing through town, it was not uncommon to see the different faces and costumes of the Yi, Lisu, Han, Naxi, Hui and Tibetan ethnic groups, especially in Shaxi’s main square, where goods were sold.

The caravans could have as many as 40 or 50 animals, mostly mules with some horses. Just as important were the muleteers, who were usually responsible for 10 animals.

The caravan routes died out around 60 years ago, eliminating the main source of revenue for the economy that had thrived in Shaxi. The town reverted to reliance upon agrarianism and has passed the decades quietly, missing out on benefits – and drawbacks – that other Chinese cities have experienced since the late 1970s.

Now, just as quietly, Shaxi is experiencing a renaissance of sorts through tourism. The local government has spent quite a bit of funds on cleaning up the old town for visitors and has done a surprisingly good job of it.

Without any advertisements, few shops and no cars, plus several dozen well-preserved old Bai homes, in many ways Shaxi feels frozen in time.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing in the old town, there is a small handful of cafes and restaurants there, as well as one of our favorite new boutique hotels in Yunnan, Laomadian.

Laomadian is a compound of several old Bai homes that has been tastefully renovated by A Fang, an extremely welcoming Taiwanese woman who has long been interested in the history and cultures of northwest Yunnan.

Just a few doors up from Laomadian is the courtyard home of Ouyang Shengxian, a 70-year-old Bai man whose father and grandfather were some of the last of the muleteers.

We spoke with Ouyang on a recent sunny Shaxi morning in his 100-year-old home, where he recalled the days of visiting caravans for us. As he told us stories of the old days, with visitors from afar and banditry, we felt extremely fortunate to be able to sit down with a man who is truly a link to a bygone era.

The history and people of Shaxi alone make a visit worthwhile, but there are also plenty of natural attractions.

The crystal-clear Heihui River flows just outside the old town, with paths on both sides that are ideal for strolls in the sunshine. There are several photogenic bridges along the river and several small towns dotting the valley.

Up in the hills surrounding the valley, there are plentiful hiking options. If you have the time, we highly recommend any of the two- or three-day treks in the hills, which will take you through several Yi villages.

If you’re shorter on time, Shibao Mountain is a great place to spend a morning or afternoon before hiking back downhill to Shaxi. The mountain is home to Buddhist grottoes that miraculously survived the destruction of the Cultural Revolution and are some of the most important artifacts connected to the spread of Buddhism into China from India via Tibet. These grottoes are highly treasured – visitors are not allowed to take any photos of them.

Interestingly, there is also a large indentation in the stone near the grottoes that locals say resembles a human vagina. It is a tradition for pregnant women from around the valley to pray to it with the hope that they have a smooth delivery.

After checking out the grottoes on Shibao Mountain, we hit one of the trails that leads back down to Shaxi and the surrounding valley. We scanned from one end of the valley to the other and were unable to see a crane or any other construction – this is nearly impossible in today’s China.

Work is underway on a new highway that will make Shaxi more accessible to the outside world – all the reason to visit Shaxi sooner rather than later. The local government has declared its dedication to sustainable development and is working with international NGOs to that end. We hope that for their sake, and the world’s, they can manage to preserve Shaxi’s pristine beauty for generations to come.

One of our favorite things about getting off the beaten path in China is that no matter how well you think you may understand the country, there’s always a surprise waiting to prove you wrong.

This was illustrated when we visited the small village of Nongyang, several miles outside of Menghai, in southern Yunnan. We were in search of suancha, a fermented tea that is eaten rather than drunk.

Nongyang is primarily inhabited by the Bulang ethnic group, who along with the Hani and Dai are considered one of the main stewards of some of the region’s finest tea plantations.

Often referred to as ‘pickled tea’, suancha is probably better translated as ‘sour tea’. The ever-hospitable Bulang serve suancha at weddings and celebrations. As our hosts in Nongyang noted, if you don’t have suancha, you can’t get married.

The production of suancha is surprisingly complex. First the tea is cooked for around 10 minutes, after which it is drained, then packed into a section of bamboo, which is then sealed with red clay.

The bamboo tube is buried for six months to two years, and is frequently watered while underground to aid the fermentation process.

We were lucky enough to visit our hosts on a day when they were digging up a bamboo tube of suancha that had been buried for more than a year. The flavor was a sour but clean variation on the classic green tea experience.

When eating suancha, Bulang people either eat it straight or they may mix in salt, garlic and chili and serve with rice. We ate several pinches of suancha straight from the bowl and found it to stimulate our hunger. Taking our cue from our stomachs, we headed back to Menghai for a local feast.

There’s no better way to understand tea than to see where it comes from and how the locals who understand it best enjoy it – that’s exactly what we did in Menghai, a sleepy but charming town in southern Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna region.

Menghai is best known for being home to some of the oldest – and best – tea plants in the world. With tea expert Jeff Fuchs as our guide, we visited the Tianlong Tea Shop, which is run by Yang Zhibiao, a Yunnan native who is as knowledgeable about tea as he is hospitable.

The tea that grows around Menghai comes from an assamica varietal of camellia sinensis, which is generally referred to as pu’er tea. There are three kinds of pu’er tea:

Shengcha: dried green tea leaves that brew an aromatic yellow liquor with a slight bitterness

Shoucha: leaves that have aged and fermented naturally over time, ideally at least fifteen years, that brew a reddish-brown liquor with an earthy flavor – this kind of tea can also be called chencha

Cooked pu’er: a tea made by a technique in which a process is used to essentially cut corners and quickly create a product that resembles shoucha, but is inferior in both taste and health benefits

As you might be able to guess, Yang and others who take tea seriously in Menghai only drink the first two varieties of pu’er tea. As for cooked pu’er, he says the production process ruins the tea by destroying many of the healthy properties found in the leaves and reducing the antioxidant content.

Yang selected two varieties of shoucha for us to sample, both of which were grown in the area. The first was laobanzhang pu’er, which he broke off from a 400-gram flat round cake. He prepared a small pot with eight grams of dried leaves, which he said could be steeped 15 times.

Not every steeping of tea is the same – the first steeping opens up the leaves for what is essentially a parabolic flavor curve, with the third and fourth steepings the best. As Yang busily steeped and poured the tea, we sipped away, appreciate the subtle change in each steeping.

The laobanzhang began quite subtly, with a mild, almost nutty quality to it. Over several steepings it began to open up to the palate revealing new layers of complexity. By the tenth steeping, we were noticing a distinct tea buzz that wasn’t just caffeine – tea contains around 450 different stimulant compounds.

Yang encouraged us to smell our small tea cups after emptying them. We did so, noticing a light but lingering aroma. Jeff explained that the smell of good tea should remain in the cup afterward, indicating a superior vegetal complex. He added that this was one of the tricks of the trade used by professional tea tasters.

Next Yang prepared a pot of ziye, or purple leaf, tea for us to taste. The darker leaves produced a slightly more flavorful liquor with a pleasant hint of sweetness. These leaves have a slightly higher sugar content than other teas.

After the gentle crescendo and decrescendo of the pot of ziye, we were all feeling slightly wired, but not in the uncomfortable way that is associated with excessive coffee consumption. This is normal for people who don’t slurp the vast quantities of tea that Yang and Jeff do each day.

Jeff offered us some basic tea drinking tips: don’t drink tea on an empty stomach, and have a small snack such as chocolate on hand if you plan on having more than just a cup or two.

Before we left Yang’s shop with a few cakes in tow, Jeff explained to us that in addition to his shop, Yang is working with local growers to create a growing collective that will focus on giving local growers a larger slice of the economic pie, while also focusing on the quality of the leaves rather than quantity. We raised our teacups to the future of his endeavors.

Among the Miao people of Guizhou, there is a festival that only takes place once every thirteen years. The Guzang festival is a two-plus week celebration honoring Li Rong, the ancient leader of the Miao people.

The first day of the Guzang festival is a fairly laid back affair along the lines of an opening ceremony. It is followed by the local shaman circling a mountain with a male duck on the second day and the slaughtering of many pigs and a massive feast on the third day.

We were lucky enough to be in Kaili on the first day of the festival, and we decided to head to Beigao Village, where the local shaman is a friend of our Guizhou guide Billy Li.

Before arriving in Beigao we had to pick up some party favors, which included three large rolls of firecrackers to be set off in announcement of our arrival. We also purchased a male duck, which we would give the shaman.

Once we had prepared everything, we hit a trailhead about one hour’s drive outside of Kaili and started hiking toward Beigao.

During the three-hour hike we followed a clear stream uphill for the first couple of hours, using stepping stones to cross it several times.

The last leg of the hike was a steep ascent consisting primarily of narrow switchbacks. As we gained altitude, the vistas became increasingly spectacular. A village at the top of a mountain across the valley became visible, and Billy told us that every morning children from Beigao would descend their mountain and walk up the other mountain to go to school.

After a few stops to enjoy the stunning scenery we eventually made it to the entrance of Beigao Village. Billy lit a roll of firecrackers to announce our arrival. The nearly two-minute series of explosions created plenty of noise and smoke and also drew a large crowd of children who were curious to see who we were.

The village shaman, Mr. Li, came down to greet us. He thanked us for the duck and led us up into the village, where young Miao women were waiting for us with small bowls of rice wine, the traditional Miao greeting for guests.

After a quick three bowls of rice wine, we were buzzing in the warm sun. We were welcomed by the rest of the villagers at the village basketball court, where we were treated to traditional singing and dancing – and another round of rice wine.

The village’s women were all dressed in traditional Miao costume, with silver adornments a major feature. On the side of the court, young local boys waited for the festivities to move elsewhere so they could get back to playing basketball.

We were invited into the home of Mr. Li the shaman, where we sat around a long table and chatted with the young women who had given us rice wine. We discovered that despite Beigao’s remoteness, several of the girls no longer lived in the village – they had moved to coastal cities to make money, much of which they sent home.

During a delicious home-cooked meal of stir-fried pork and cabbage and spicy and sour fish soup, the shaman encouraged us to drink more rice wine, which we drank in increasingly small sips. The young women burst into song once more, captivating all of us with their beautiful voices.

After the meal, one of the women who had cooked for us exonerated us to stay an extra couple of days for the upcoming feast. Unfortunately, we were not going to be able to catch the height of the Guzang festivities this time around.

It was time for us to make our way back to Kaili via a bus that was waiting for us outside the village. Nearly the entire village walked with us to our ride. We were given hearty handshakes by the men and – you guessed it – rice wine by the women.

Driving away from Beigao we were once again struck by the friendliness and generosity of the rural people of Guizhou – and the potency of their rice wine.

The next morning we discovered one of the members of our group had left his hat at the shaman’s home. We wouldn’t have time to go back and get it this time, but we now had the perfect excuse to hike back to the village next time we were in Guizhou.

Guizhou may not attract as much attention as its neighbors Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi, but it certainly deserves to be considered when making plans to travel to southwest China.

Beautiful mountain scenery and a distinctive spicy and sour cuisine are reason enough to visit Guizhou. But as in many other parts of China, the main draw for us is the people.

This was illustrated perfectly today when we traveled with some friends to Wangba Village, one hour outside of the southeast Guizhou city of Kaili.

The residents of Wangba Village are members of the Gejia ethnic group, who are officially a subgroup of the Miao minority, but many will tell you that they are not Miao. There are similarities such as their shared fondness for the lusheng reed instrument and a penchant for rice wine, but the Gejia have their own identity, of which they are rightly proud.

As our van arrived at the bottom of Wangba Village we were greeted by a small group of Gejia women ranging in age from late teens to their forties. Wearing bright embroidered costumes, intricate silver jewelry and unique hats, they were one of the more memorable welcomes we’d had in a while.

Singing a song to welcome us, they poured rice wine into bowls and then poured the bowls into our mouths. Once we had drank the rice wine, they stamped our faces with a small chop, leaving a red character on our foreheads and cheeks.

We headed uphill for twenty minutes before entering lower Wangba Village, which is home to roughly 200 people. The village and its neighboring villages are home to a total of 3,000 people – miniscule by Chinese standards. Along the way, passersby smiled and offered warm nihaos (hellos).

We were led into the courtyard of a Gejia family. The men were working in a nearby town, leaving the women and children at home. The women are skilled at embroidery and weaving and also make batiks using beeswax and indigo.

The simple courtyard offered scenic views of the mountain valley below that were complemented by the clear blue skies and warm sun. Wheat was drying in the sun on tarps on the ground, while ears of corn dried in the eaves of the home above.

A couple of pigs snorted in their pens as an ox yawned in its stable. A small brown dog which looked like many of the other dogs in Wangba looked at us curiously as we spoke with the women.

One woman, an 18 year-old named Feifang, spoke better Mandarin than the rest, many of whom were extremely limited in China’s official language, which was their second language. Polite, genuine and obviously very intelligent, Feifang told us about life in Wangba while the other women were busy stitching, weaving and even making a batik.

As we spoke with Feifang, more and more local children from around Wangba found their way into the courtyard. Shy at first, they warmed up when we showed them the photographs we had taken of them with our digital cameras.

One of the feistier women swept up the wheat, cracking jokes with us in Mandarin and with her friends in the Gejia language. It was time for us to be on our way, but not before one last round of rice wine and song.

After three more gulps of the strong but warming elixir, the women sang a farewell song and brought us to the top of the trailhead that would lead us down to our van below.

After saying our goodbyes to our gracious hosts, we’d been walking for only a few seconds when Feifang burst into song by herself. The words, which none of us understood, floated down to us and lightened our steps as we made our way down the winding trail. We may have only been in Wangba for a couple of hours, but it’s safe to say that they were a couple of hours that none of us will ever forget.