Warming to Yunnan’s Tropics

I knew I had to visit Xishuangbanna when I saw the elephants in the Kunming airport.

Actually, it was a photographic enlargement of elephants along the bank of a muddy river as they emerged from the jungle in Xishuangbanna. It caught my eye when I passed through the airport in Kunming on a visit to Yunnan province, part of a monthlong trip last May to a country whose history I studied in graduate school.

Elephants in China? They seemed so incongruous with the jagged peaks, lakes and deep gorges, the wheat fields and terraced rice fields in the brisk mountain air of northern Yunnan. I saw the elephant photo again when I returned to the airport, and right there I booked a flight to Xishuangbanna.

Xishuangbanna, in the southernmost part of Yunnan province bordering Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, is home to 800,000 people, a third of whom belong to the Dai ethnic group. In fact, “Xishuangbanna” is a Chinese transliteration of Dai meaning “12 administrative districts.” (It’s easier to pronounce than it might look: shee-shwahng-BAAN-na.)

The Dai, who have their own written language, have lived here for more than 2,000 years. Their culture is different from the majority Han Chinese, and they practice Theravada Buddhism, a form more prevalent in Southeast Asia than in other regions of China. Xishuangbanna also is home to several ethnic minorities, the Hani and Bulang, among others.

From Kunming I flew to Jinghong, the regional seat of Xishuangbanna. The 50-minute flight was packed; once restricted territory, tropical Jinghong has become the Reno of China, a vacation destination for Chinese because they can escape the cold north without needing a passport. In 1997 nearly 2 million Chinese traveled here, but only 23,000 foreigners did.

When I stepped off the plane, a blanket of warm, steamy air settled over me, although it was 9 at night. The road into town was dotted with coconut palms, and I could hear insects buzzing. I had definitely entered the tropics.

The Lonely Planet guidebook on China describes Jinghong as a “sleepy town,” but none of its 100,000 people seemed to be slumbering when I arrived. Jinghong Nan Road was jammed with honking cabs and shops from which disco music blared. Lights shone from multistoried hotels, which advertised bars, casinos and, at one spot, a bowling alley.

I had a reservation at the Crown Hotel, which on the outside resembled the other garish hotels lining Jinghong Nan Road. But beyond its gaudy entrance, I was surprised to find several two-story structures with the triangular steepled roofs that are the hallmark of Dai architecture. My room was nondescript except for one singular feature: air-conditioning controlled by remote.

Soon after checking in, I went for a walk and was drawn by the sounds of a happy crowd in the city square. A karaoke singer entertained one group. Another practiced tai chi movements, while yet another bunch line-danced to a Brooks & Dunn country tune, taking their cues from a caller wearing a rhinestone-studded yoked shirt. As the only foreigner there, I hoped I wasn’t expected to know the steps.

The next morning I joined a party of four Western photographers who had hired a Dai guide to tour the countryside. The guide, who introduced himself as “Jungle Jack” (Chinese name: Zhang Xue-Dong), had the neck and body of a linebacker, a Marine haircut and a boisterous laugh. If anyone could lead me to elephants, I thought, Jack could.

Jack said there was an elephant park northeast of the city, but that it was full of tourists. If I went south with his group, he said, I might get a taste of the jungle by wandering around as the others searched for photo opportunities.

As we left Jinghong, the row of hotels faded, replaced by shacks and vegetable plots. Trellised cucumber vines gave away to yellow-green rice fields and groves of dark green rubber trees in the hills beyond.

Xishuangbanna’s hilly terrain is bisected by the Lancang River, or Mekong as it’s known to Westerners, as it flows toward its delta in the South China Sea. Its tributaries have carved 24 valleys between the hills. The 7,482-square-mile area was once jungle, but the Mekong’s flood plain has been converted mostly to rice paddies, and the uplands have been cleared for rubber plantations. Only about 15% of Xishuangbanna is still jungle, and there remained some patches along our route where wild vegetation grew.

Midway to our first destination, a Buddhist shrine, we pulled off the road when the photographers spotted an orange-robed Buddhist monk on a motor scooter. I wandered down a path into a thicket, which was a haven of insect life. Xishuangbanna is home to thousands of species of flora and fauna, and I nearly stepped on one: a butterfly, with two blue dots inside yellow circles on its wings, camouflaged by decaying leaves. Even more insects circled the red-orange flowers of a golden phoenix tree. The vegetation grew denser, almost obscuring the path, when I came upon a pair of wild mango trees, their limbs bearing nearly ripe fruit. I was just thinking about what wild animals I might encounter here when Jungle Jack called me back to the van.

We continued south, meandering along the Nan A River as it flowed toward the Mekong. The two-lane road was bumpy, and we met no other cars. Occasionally we passed the ubiquitous vehicle of rural Yunnan: a tractor-truck contraption, with a tractor engine and small wheels in front, a cab for the driver, and a truck bed and large wheels in back. We traveled through rubber plantations interspersed with banyan trees, and passed clearings where white box-like dormitories had been constructed to house workers.

At a stone sign that announced, in English and Chinese, “Manfeilong,” we turned right onto a dirt path that took us up a steep hill topped by a pagoda. The Manfeilong pagoda was built in 1204 on a site where the Buddha is thought to have stopped, leaving a footprint. A stone plate in front of the pagoda is imprinted with the outline.

The pagoda had a central circular spire, or stupa, 53 feet high, surrounded by eight smaller spires, resembling bamboo shoots. On the round pedestal from which the spires emanated, eight alcoves were shaded by gold-painted arches, and each contained objects of worship. One had a gold-plated Buddha sculpture; others were decorated with bells, flowers and ornaments. The structure was painted silver a few years ago, but rain has left blackened streaks, a better reflection of its age.

We drove on to Menglong, the last town in Xishuangbanna before the Myanmar border. On its one main street, rows of identical white two-story buildings stood on either side, housing shops on the first floor, residences above.

Midway down the street, past a movie theater, was a Dai barbecue restaurant. We stopped for lunch.

On the front counter lay an assortment of meats on skewers that we could select for roasting on an open fire. Jungle Jack urged us to try a skewer of fish heads, but most of us were less adventurous and chose chunks of chicken and pork. Our round table also was spread with vegetable dishes, familiar bean sprouts and peas and several others that were new to us: curled fern stems in a mildly salty broth, bamboo shoots that we had to peel to get to the tender heart (similar in etiquette and taste to eating an artichoke), and a white meaty dish that I thought was chicken but that Jack called a “fungus.” It tasted a bit like mushroom soup, and like the rest of our excellent meal, it was definitely worth trying.

After lunch we crossed the Nan A River and headed north through acres of rice fields. We pulled off the road at what appeared to be a small shrine, a round white building with an orange spired roof and sculpted dragons on the sides. Inside was the village well.

A typical Dai village consists of 30 to 80 households. Traditionally, Dai houses were built on wooden stilts to survive flooding in the wet season from June to September. Today, modern materials support traditional architecture: Brick pillars have replaced the stilts, and roofs that once were thatched now have shingles. The roofs are still triangular, and larger dwellings of wealthier villagers depict peacocks (which represent good luck) and floral designs on their steeples.

I visited a Dai home that had a traditional floor plan. The ground floor had no walls, and the space was apportioned into bins for storing bicycles and firewood, and for farm animals. The Dai live on the second floor, where the walls were only about three feet high. The rest was exposed to the outside but shaded by the roof, which was designed to help keep the dwelling cool. The Dai eat meals and receive their guests in a main room, and next to it is a room where they sleep and which guests must not enter.

I saw groups of Dai women in the village wearing the traditional dress of ankle-length, close-fitting skirts with floral prints in bright colors--yellow, magenta and light green. Young women often wore their hair in buns, while some of the older ones wore white turbans.

Our next stop was a Hani village. Dai villages are usually in the lowlands along rivers or streams, but the Hani tend to live on high ground.

The village extended upward from a row of houses along a dirt road. The houses grew smaller as we ascended the hillside. Single-room, thatch-roofed dwellings with no embellishments--no Dai steeples or floral designs--they were perched on bamboo platforms that seemed a little shaky to walk on.

The Hani (or Ai-ni locally), the second largest ethnic group in Xishuangbanna, have their own spoken language but not a written one. They are not Buddhists; their religion is a mix of ancestral and animist worship.

The Hani women we saw wore muted colors, but decorated their clothing with silver coins and multicolored beaded necklaces. Their shoes were khaki canvas with rubber soles, perfect for muddy terrain.

By now it was late and starting to rain, and we were not as prepared as the Hani to wade through the mud. So we drove back to Jinghong for a second night at the Crown Hotel.

The next morning, Jungle Jack took us to the Sunday market in the town of Menghun, a two-hour drive southwest of the city. Vendors, most of them Dai women, set out their wares on carts, tables and ground cloths. We saw cabbages stacked like cannonballs, along with white sacks of red chili peppers, bitter melon (which looks like oblong honeydew) and fern curls. Shoppers could buy long strings of noodles, live fish that swam in buckets and live chicks in round straw baskets.

People streamed in, whole villages in tractor-truck beds, on bicycles and on foot. Mingling in the market were Dai women in bright floral designs, Hani women with large baskets held by wood pads on their shoulders and straps across their foreheads, and Bulang women in black headdresses with a spectrum of lateral stripes on their skirts and jackets. It was busy but not crowded, and noisy with the sound of a thousand conversations--weighing items, gauging quality, reviewing prices.

That evening I was back in the Kunming airport, face to face with the photo of elephants. I had gone to Xishuangbanna in search of pachyderms, but I discovered instead some remarkable people and their efforts to sustain their rich cultures in a rapidly modernizing China.

As I studied the photo again, an Englishwoman stopped beside me. “It’s not what you think,” she said.

Indeed. It was better.

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GUIDEBOOK

A Jaunt Around China’s Jungle

Getting there: From L.A. to Kunming, round-trip fares with connections through Beijing start at $1,250 on Air China and China Eastern airlines. Add another $100 for round-trip fares between Kunming and Jinghong.

Getting around: I traveled with Wen Zhen Photography, P.O. Box 4597, Durango, CO 81302, telephone (970) 259-8940, fax (970) 259-8726, e-mail wenzhenphoto@rmi.net, which offered a two-day trip to Xishuangbanna as part of a 21-day tour of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. A customized tour is possible.

China Travel Service, 119 S. Atlantic Blvd., Suite 303, Monterey Park, CA 91754; tel. (800) 890-8818, fax (626) 457-8955, Internet https://www.chinatravelservice.com, also offers custom tours and a two-night visit to Xishuangbanna starting at $280 plus air fare.

Where to stay: In Jinghong, I stayed at the Crown Hotel, Jinghong 666100, tel. 011-86-691-212-8888, fax 011-86-691-212-7270. Rooms begin at $46.

Several tour groups stay at the Banna Mansion, 1 W. Jinghong Road, Jinghong 666100; tel. 011-86-691-212-2049, fax 011-86-691-212-7021. Rooms begin at $30.

Where to eat: In Jinghong, the Crown Hotel has a buffet breakfast with mostly Chinese dishes, some local vegetables and scrambled eggs. Dinner at the hotel was adequate. We ate at the excellent Dai barbecue in Menglong (no phone). It is midway on the east side of the street, next to a bicycle repair shop.

For more information: China National Tourist Office, 600 W. Broadway, Suite 320, Glendale, CA 91204; tel. (818) 545-7507, fax (818) 545-7506, https://www.cnto.org. Also see https://www.budgettravel.com/china.htm for a detailed list of contacts on China travel.