Yunnan Travel Guide

        Yunnan Province is located on the southwest boundary of the People's Republic of China, situating at 2008′32″-- 29015′8″north latitude and 97031′39″-- 106011′47″, east longitude. The south part of Yunnan Province is on the belt of the Tropic of Cancer. In the entire province with a total area of 394,000 square kilometers, about 84% area is mountainous region, 10% area is plateau and hilly land and 6% area is basin and valley. The average altitude of the province is around 2,000 meters above the sea level. The highest point is 6,740 meters and the lowest is 76.4 meters above the sea level. Yunnan is a land of ethnic diversity and has an ethnic minority population of the second largest in China. Of the 55 minority groups in China, 51 inhabit in Yunnan. There are 25 ethnic minority groups living in compact communities, and 15 minority groups ranking the first place in China in terms of the number of indigenous ethnic minority groups. Yunnan is rich in its various biological resources and it is also the most important treasure-house of China's biological resources. Yunnan is well known as "the Kingdom of plants", "the Kingdom of Animals", "the Home of Flowers", "the Home of Medicinal Herbs" and "the Gene Reserves of the Biological Resources". Because of is unique climate and geographical environment, Yunnan owns the biggest varieties of plants and animals in China.

 Lijiang

        Lijiang naxi autonomous county is located in the northwest corner of Yunnan province in southwest China. The Lijiang County consists of a new administrative section and the original town of Dayan. For travelers who come from cities in their own countries, which constitute the overwhelming majority, the real gem of the region is Lijiang Old Town---Dayan (means inkstand). It is a well-preserved traditional town in which the wooden buildings constructed in the Song and Ming dynasties are still standing. There is no motorized transport permitted in Dayan and the only wheeled vehicles within the old town are bicycles and carts. The entire county capital has a population of 60,000 people of whom the great majorities belong to the Naxi ethnic minority. The major scenic spots in Lijiang are Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xueshan) and its modern maritime glacier, the only one of its kind in the southern end of the Northern Hemisphere; Tiger Leaping Gorge ( Hutiaoxia ); the world -famous grand canyon; Lugu Lake, the cultural cradle of the "Matriarchy" of the Yongning Mosuo people in Ninglang; the Old Town of Dayan Lijiang, which is referred to by European and American tourists as the "Oriental Venice" .

Dali

                                                                                                                       Dali is situated in the southwest of Yunnan and is 400 kilometers away from Kunming. Dali municipality covers an area of 1,457 square kilometers, and is inhabited by 400 thousand people, composed of Bai, Han, Hui, Yi, Lisu, and other nationalities, among whom the Bai nationality makes up 64% of the total. Dali City stands against Cangshan Mountain in the west and adjoins Erhai Lake in the east, and is embraced by undulating hills around. The elevation of the city is 1,974 meters. Dali is a highland city in low latitude and its climate is of subtropical highland monsoon type. The weather is temperate, the annual mean temperature being 15ºC and rainfall 1,078 mm. The monsoon season falls on June through October, and there is no marked seasonal change in a year. Abundant sunshine makes the weather warm, but the wind is very strong, so Xiaguan of Dali is known as "A City of Wind." As "a land of letters", Dali was the cradle of the Bai’s culture. In the long history of the past, the ancestors of the Bais and the Yis had created the brilliant Erhai Culture and left numerous illuminating historical and cultural relics. Within the boundaries of Dali, there are many ancient pagodas, steles, places of historical interest and frescoes. The ancient Dali City is still standing there elegantly and toweringly. The most outstanding places of interest in Dali are: the ancient city proper of Dali, the Three Pagodas on the ruins of Chongshengsi Monastery, Nanzhao Stele, the Tablet Commemorating Kublai khan's Conquest of Yunnan, the remains of Taihe City, etc..

Xishuangbanna

        In the southwest of China and at the southern most tip of Yunnan Province, there is a picturesque, fertile and mysterious land - Xishuangbanan. In the Dai language, "xishuang" is "twelve" and "banna" is "one thousand pieces of land", thus "Xishuangbanna" can be directly translated into "twelve thousand pieces of land". As a matter of fact, it refers to the twelve regions that are under its administration. With Myanmar to the southwest and Laos to the southeast, Xishuangbanna has a boundary line of 1,069 kilometers.
        Covering an area of 19,700 square kilometers, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is composed of one municipality and two counties. The highest point in the region is 2,429 meters above sea level whereas the lowest is only 477 meters. Dominated by a tropical rainforest climate, the average temperature of Xishuangbanna is 21°C.
        The capital of Xishuangbanna Prefecture is "Jinghong", which means "the City of Dawn" in the Dai language. It is 692 km from Kunming. There are more than ten nationalities including the Dai, the Hani, the Jinuo and the Bulang, etc in its land. There live over 5,000 species of plants and hundreds kinds of rare and valuable birds and animals in its 20,000 square kilometers tropical virgin forest, thus Xishuangbanna is noted as "the Kingdom of Plants and Animals" and "An Emerald on the Tropic of Cancer".

        The Dai people is good at singing and dancing and believes in the Buddhism, the Buddhism temples are scattering over every village. The village of the Dais mostly builds by the water, circling with bamboo fence and covering with the fruit trees, so as to set up the independent courtyard one by one. The Water-Splashing Festival, namely the New Year's Day by the Dai calendar will be celebrated every year in the 6th month of Dai calendar (on April 13 - 15 by the solar calendar). The rich and colorful activities attract numerous tourists from home and abroad.

Shangri-la

        Shangri-la, a popular word after World War II and one frequently adopted by stores, hotels and restaurants, signifies a "heaven away from the turmoil of the mundane word". Actually, "Shangri-la" is a Tibetan word, which means "land of sacredness and peace."
        The word "Shangri-la" first appeared in its westernized form in James Hiltom's novel The Lost Horizon. This book tells the story of three American pilots who, when flying over the Sino-Indian air route during World War II, crash-land in the midst a beautiful landscape. This place of tranquility and peace is described as having "snow mountains, grasslands, Tibetan people, red soil plateaus, with three rivers flowing traversing the landscape". After being rescued by the local Tibetan people, the three American pilots finally return home.
        Three snow-capped mountains, Meili, Baimang and Haba, tower magnificently over the landscape. The region is crisscrossed by the Golden Sand, Mekong, and Yangtze Rivers. These snowy peaks form a beautiful backdrop whose beauty is a feast to behold. Mirror-like lakes, scattered across the vast expanse of grassland, look like rich jewels inlaid on a beautiful tapestry. Cattle graze leisurely in the meadows, where exotic flowers and luxuriant grass wave at the request of the gentle breeze. In the depths of the surrounding forests is an exotic world of rare birds and animals.
        Mother Nature has endowed Shangri-la with bountiful natural wealth, making the land a happy home for the 100,000 Tibetans, Lisus, Naxis and Yis who call the area their home. As is this pristine natural environment, these nationalities are all kind, honest, extremely hospitable to outsiders. The lamasery of "Shangri-la" is Guihua Temple, or Songzanlin Lamasery in Tibet. The lamasery, with 800 lamas, resembles Potala Palace of Lhasa in its layout. The five-story Tibetan style building is covered with wooden carvings and gold-plated copper tiles. You may have a look at the Gallery of Tibetan Religion and Culture in Deqen.
 

Yunnan Cuisine

        Yunnan Cuisine, though not yet well known in the West, is one of the best regional eating experiences in China. As the province with the largest number of ethnic minorities, Yunnan has a great variety of food. Many dishes borrow hot, spicy flavors from neighboring Sichuan. Others, influenced by periodic migrations from provinces such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, reflect the subtle, rounded taste of eastern and southeast Chinese cuisine. The year-round availability and variety of vegetables provides a seemingly limitless menu.

        Crossing-bridge rice noodles are a traditional Yunnan dish born out of one woman's desire to provide her husband with hot meals. A scholar, preparing for the imperial examinations, isolated himself on an island in a lake. His wife was dismayed that meals she carried to him across a long, wooden bridge always arrived cold. But by chance, she discovered the way to keep soup boiling hot was to top it with a thin layer of chicken grease which prevented the spot without a stove. Of course, her husband passed the exams.

        The essence of cross-bridge rice noodles is the chicken broth. The best broth is made with the bones of old chickens, old ducks, and spring pigs. The bones should be boiled for at least six or seven hours to allow all their contained nutrition and flavor to seep into the soup. Remove the bones and you have the foundation for cross-bridge rice noodles.
        Like hotpot, you can put pretty much anything you like into the chicken soup, with only rice noodles a mandatory ingredient. However, traditional items include thin slices of mullet fish, Yunnan ham, chicken, and fatty pork. Toss everything at once into the chicken soup and wait one to two minutes for all your items to cook through. When drinking the soup, be careful not to scald yourself.

        Steam-Pot Chicken is an excellent local speciality of Yunnan. Steam-Pot Chicken has become renowned at home and abroad for its special cooking, tender chicken, delicious soup, original chicken taste, wonderful aroma and rich nutrition.
        While preparing the dish, one has to follow several steps: chop flesh chicken and put it into a steam pot with ingredients like ginger slices and salt; cover the pot with a lid and steam it for 3 to 4 hours.
        Steam-Pot Chicken became popular in South Yunnan during the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty. In Jianshui, a place of pottery production, an ingenious craftsman named Yang Li invented a water chestnut-shaped pottery steamer.

        In the middle of the steamer there was an empty tube linking its bottom almost to its lid. This design plays an important role in the preparation of this dish: the steaming passing through the empty tube cooks the chicken and gathers finally in the pot to become the chicken soup.
        In this case, when the chicken is cooked, the pot will be filled with steaming soup with the original fresh and delicious taste of chicken. The Steam-pot Chicken spread to Kunming in 1942.