Making a Pilgrimage to Colorful, Remote China

Perhaps the biggest lure of the Xishuangbanna region is that it is so hard to get to.

A remote, unspoiled corner of southwest China just above the Laos-Burma border, the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture has been officially open to tourists since mid-1985, but only in the last 18 months have transportation and bureaucratic restrictions improved enough to make the trip feasible.

The geographical remoteness, and because Xishuangbanna (pronounced shee-shwahng-ba-na) is home to about 24 of China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups, are the two main reasons why the area is gaining in popularity for travelers who love a challenge.

Han Chinese, who make up 95% of China’s population, are only one-third of Xishuangbanna’s. Another third of the region’s 600,000 people is the Dai ethnic group. Hani, Bulang, Jinuo and other small groups make up the rest.

Xishuangbanna is quite unlike the rest of China. The ubiquitous concrete block apartment buildings and drab shops of China’s big cities are here Dai thatched-roof homes, built on stilts to escape monsoon flooding, and lush natural surroundings, including an estimated 5,000 varieties of tropical plants.

Groups Have Advantage

Most people travel to Xishuangbanna in groups. Individual travel is possible if you’re lucky enough to get onto a scheduled flight from Kunming, capital of Hunnan Province.

But China’s national airline, CAAC, schedules only seven flights a week on 48-seat prop jets to the area, and tour groups snap up most of those well in advance, causing the regular flights to be canceled.

Individual travelers may find themselves stranded in Kunming with tickets that are no good because the flight has been canceled, or they face the prospect of getting to Xishuangbanna and not being able to return to Kunming. Return trips cannot be booked in advance on domestic flights in China.

(Don’t expect much help from Chinese officials in getting to this area. China has long been suspicious of its minority groups, and many Chinese ask openly why anyone would want to visit a minority area. Only after the Communists took power in 1949 was the symbol for “dog,” until then included in the written characters for ethnic names, abolished.)

This uncertainty makes less intrepid travelers nervous, but for tourists persistent or lucky enough to wade through the hassles and red tape that are China, the rewards are great.

Only for Adventurous

The flight from Kunming is just under one hour over the beautiful reddish-brown Ailao and Wuliang mountains, which surround sapphire blue lakes and small settlements. Narrow dirt roads, which from the air look like thin copper ribbon, wind around and up the mountains.

The plane touches down in Simao, a warm and sunny but otherwise uninspiring town. This is where you begin the hair-raising 3 1/2-hour bus journey to Yunjinghong--sometimes referred to as Jinghong, the region’s capital. The road has been paved in the last couple of years, but it is narrow and runs along the edge of sheer cliffs.

Compared to the overwhelming grayness of many northern Chinese cities, Yunjinghong is a splash of color. Dai women, wearing ankle-length pink, yellow or red form-fitting skirts and thin cotton blouses, stroll together down uncrowded streets.

Well-made wooden Dai homes, which have thatched roofs and are built on stilts about six feet off the ground, dot the landscape. Banana and papaya trees are heavy with fruit, even in midwinter.

Winter is the best time to visit, especially after a trip to sub-zero Beijing or Harbin, home of China’s ice festival. March to October is monsoon season when the air is thick with mosquitoes. In winter the air is dry but warm, about 84 degrees in mid-afternoon, with only slightly cooler temperatures at night.

Hotel Alternatives

Most tour groups stay at the Banna Guest House in Yunsjinghong. The rooms are drab and Spartan but clean, with showers that alternately scald and freeze you. Mosquito nets are provided. The rates are good, 28 yuan (about $8 U.S.) a night for a double, and the food in the restaurant is adequate if not inspiring.

An official of the Foreign Affairs Office of Yunnan Province was adamant that the Banna Guest House “is the only hotel now open to foreigners,” but an adventuresome American couple traveling on their own said there are at least two alternatives in the city.

One is the Dai Minority Guesthouse just outside downtown, where three or four guests at a time are allowed to stay in a thatched-roof Dai house and eat traditional Dai food, which Dai cooks will proudly say combines salty, sweet, sour and bitter tastes.

This combination is quite good, and there are ample opportunities to sample Dai cuisine even if you don’t stay there. Rates are 2.5 yuan per bed (about 70 cents), with shared toilet and no showers. Only plywood partitions separate the beds, so don’t expect much in the way of privacy.

The other alternative is a small hotel on the grounds of the Tropical Cash Crop Institute of Yunnan Province, a short bicycle ride from the center of town. No rates were available, as most who stay there do as guests of the government.

Patience Pays Off

While foreigners traveling unaccompanied by Chinese are likely to be turned away from either of these places by suspicious hotel clerks, those with persistence, and especially those who can speak a bit of Chinese, might be able to talk their way in.

China has many strict-sounding rules about where foreigners are allowed and not allowed to go, but many of them are made to be broken by visitors with lots of patience and good humor. The China International Travel Service has an office directly across from the Banna Guest House, and someone is usually there during the day to help with accommodations.

Yunjinghong’s downtown area is plain, with the usual drugstores peddling deer antlers and other traditional medical remedies, as well as a few open-air bookstores. The best place to people-watch and absorb the flavor of this mix of cultures is the free market, held several times a week a few blocks from the Banna Guest House.

The locals bring freshly slaughtered sheep and seemingly every other conceivable animal, as well as fruits and vegetables and a few handicrafts, such as woven handbags, to trade.

Each ethnic group is recognizable by the costumes the women wear every day. Most men have adopted the loose dark green or blue jacket and pants of Han Chinese.

(A note of advice: Visit the market in the morning when most business is conducted. By afternon the smell of the unrefrigerated meat can be overwhelming.)

Ethnic Cuisine

You can sample Dai cuisine at the Dai Nationality restaurant a short walk from the center of town.

Dinner, eaten in a traditional building with low tables and short bamboo chairs, typically consists of pork and vegetables wrapped in banana leaves, red rice that you grab with your hands and work into a ball before eating, fried leaves and other odd-sounding specialties, all a welcome change from typical Chinese cooking. Dessert is a sticky but tasty rice and sugar paste wrapped in a banana leaf.

Small Dai settlements are a short bicycle ride from the guest house, which rents bikes for 1 yuan (about 27 cents) an hour. But to get an even better idea how the Dai people live, a boat ride down the Lancang River (better known to Westerners as the Mekong, around which much of everyday life revolves) is a must.

The boat ride is like a step back in time, with boys frolicking in the water and women washing their waist-length hair while young and old alike pan for gold.

The official accompanying our group told us that it is “not convenient” (read: not allowed) for tourists to travel down the river, and that the village is open only to foreigners working in China or scientists with a specific reason to be there. But again, persistence and a mild manner, combined with as much Chinese as you can muster, are all you really need to eventually win a seat on one of the boats.

The best-known holiday in Xishuangbanna is the Water-Splashing Festival, April 13-15. To mark the new year the Dai people race boats on the Mekong and shoot fireworks, and the young Dai women splash each other with water to dispel the diseases and misfortunes of the past year and usher in the new amid hopes for good health, abundant crops and fine cattle.

Hints: Bring slide film from home. Slide film is available only in the largest Chinese cities and is sometimes out of stock even there. Bring binoculars for the trip down the river to get a better view of life along the banks. Bring Dramamine or a similar medication for motion sickness. Roads here are winding and steep, and often unpaved. Avoid overeating; food in Xishuangbanna tends to be very rich.

If you are traveling on your own and have a specific scientific, educational or job-related reason to tour Xishuangbanna, come with a letter of introduction. This works wonders with nervous Chinese officials, who may then consider you an official guest worthy of the best treatment.

Finding out anything about this area, such as customs, is difficult both because of the language gap and because relatively little has been written about this area of China. The only travel guide I’ve found with any information about Xishuangbanna is “China: A Travel Survival Kit” (Lonely Planet: $17.95).

For more information: China National Tourist Office, 333 W. Broadway, Suite 201, Glendale 91204.