The White Pagoda in Manting Park.
Xishuangbanna. The name resonates like a beacon, calling you back to a lush tropical paradise wedged in between southwest China’s Yunnan Province and the bordering countries of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. You’ve been there before, 26 years ago to be precise, and now you’re heading back to see how this part of China has weathered the 21st century. As predicted, it’s become a lot more accessible, and a great deal more commercialized and touristified. Yet it still holds its charms and natural beauty and is well worth a return visit.
The last time you came here was in 1998, with your mother. You went there to seek adventure, as a young man does, and your 55-year-old mom was up to the task. For a week, she accompanied you on bus rides over winding mountain roads to remote villages to visit the local temples. She even spent hours with you circumnavigating a reservoir in search of exotic birds, only to lose your way by dusk and you were fortunate to find a road and a van to take you back to civilization. But the peak experience of your journey was when a local young lady, a member of the Dai minority that dominates this part of China, invited you to her best friend’s wedding and you spent the afternoon eating and drinking with local Dai villagers in a stilted home, the kind the Dai were (and still are) famous for in China.
Now, you are your mother’s age when she accompanied you on that journey long ago, and you are taking your own teenage daughters and your wife on the return journey. You’re hoping to discover some of the same pathways and have similar experiences, though you know that’s impossible because 25 years have passed and China has carried on its merry way, marching into the new century in brazen glory. When you came here with your mother, you flew, but you had to change flights in Kunming. This time it’s a direct flight from Shanghai to Banna, bringing thousands of tourists who prefer the balmy sun of a tropical place to the cold and grey Shanghai winter. Far more tourists come from northern China. Most have flown and arrived in big tour packages and are being bussed around to the typical tourist sites. Many more live here in the winter, and cars from Henan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, and Beijing abound on the roads (you can tell from the license plates). New buildings and housing complexes are rising around the city of Jinghong like “mushrooms in spring rain” as the saying goes, and speculation is rife. On the other hand, the surrounded mountainsides that had been stripped bare by the rampant rubber tree industry are at least somewhat restored to their original greenery.
You arrive in Jinghong, the main city in the Banna region, and settle into your hotel, a Sheraton resort hotel in the southern part of town that reminds you of a White Lotus hotel. It’s big and capped with traditional style roofs, has a large pool in the back, and has plenty of tourists from all parts of China (and a few foreigners as well). You arrive in the afternoon and decide to head out to Manting Park in the city and check out the park and the Buddhist temple there. It’s a lovely park and temple and the golden temple statues blaze in the blue sky. It feels kind of like Thailand, but you’re still in China. They say Banna is the only place in China that really has a Southeast Asian feel to it, and you agree (though perhaps Hainan Island comes close as well).
The following morning, your wife talks to one of the attendees at the front entrance to the hotel, and he recommends a driver, a local man named Y, who appears in a white SUV. This will be a far more comfortable ride than the taxi you took yesterday. Mr. Y is a native of Banna of Hani ethnicity, and he proves the perfect guide for your four-day journey. This will be a somewhat less adventurous one than the one you took with your mother 25 years before, and more comfortable rides as well. But you’re much older, and you and your wife and daughters don’t have quite the same stamina as you and your mom did back then. Even so, you are ready and willing to get off the well-trodden path of tourism, which you eventually will do.
Time for some water splashing in Primitive Forest park.
On the first full day of your stay, you decide to visit the “Primitive Forest” located around an hour’s drive through and beyond the city. After braving city traffic your driver climbs the valley into the surrounding mountains (the city of Jinghong is surrounded on all sides by low mountains) and you reach the site. Buses of tourists are there at the entrance and more busloads show up. Your driver buys tickets (he can get a discount) and takes you to the gate, where you get on a vehicle that conveys you and other tourists up a mountain road to the first big station, a large open space surrounded by vendors selling sweets and snacks, where a man leads the tourists like a preacher his congregation or a DJ in a disco. Huge basins of water are set up around the perimeter. A group of costumed dancers walks down a ramp to the middle of the open space and performs. Then everyone is welcomed onto the space for a water splashing event. Known as po shui, this is a regular ritual in this part of China and one of the reasons why so many tourists come from all over China (and the world) to this remote place. The big event known as po shui jie takes place in April, but it seems that all round the year there are folks splashing water on each other. A cleansing ritual to be sure, and an exciting part of the tourist experience here in Banna.
Walking down the forest path
You and your family move on and take an hour long walk through the tropical forest, stepping on walkways made of bamboo strips. It’s a pleasant experience, though you are surrounded by tour groups marching on the same pathway.
The next day, your driver takes you to an even more faraway place, following the Lancang River on its southeastern course almost to the border of Laos. On the way (even though you are still in China) you go through a border station and the border police stop your car and ask where you are from and where you are going. They then wave you on to your destination: the Botanical Garden.
A stilted house in the Dai village
But before you arrive there, you stop in a traditional style Dai village, and a Dai woman shows you around the village and takes you up the stairs into her stilted home. It turns out there are four generations of Dai style homes in the village, she explains. You see some stilted homes that are obviously older, with traditional wood fittings, and others made of concrete that are clearly more modern. Beautiful plants and flowers decorate the homes and gardens of the village. At the end of the village tour, she takes you to a large hall where they are selling all kinds of local items: tea, fruits, and locally made silver jewelry, but with no obligation to buy anything.
In the Botanical Garden
You depart the village and continue your journey to the Botanical Garden, famous for its staggering variety of plants, trees, and flowers. After buying tickets and taking a vehicle to the center of the Garden, you walk around for a couple of hours, enjoying the scenery. The weather is typical of December: balmy, warm, sunny, not too hot, maybe around 25 degrees. It’s a pleasant afternoon to enjoy a stroll amidst forests of trees with names you barely recognize. Each tree is labeled for easy identification. It’s a botanist’s bonanza all right. You can pay to take a hot air balloon ride (not so much a ride, just a lift to a higher elevation), but you choose to view the Garden from ground level. Late in the afternoon, you walk all the way back to the Garden entrance and your driver takes you on a two-hour ride back to your hotel, which ends up taking longer owing to the traffic and some road construction.
Looking at tea plants on the foggy mountain
On the third day, you agree to be driven up into the mountains of Nannuoshan southwest of the city. This is Hani territory, and the driver is intimately familiar with the mountains. He takes you up a steep, winding mountain road, and towards the top of the mountain the fog thickens and it’s much colder than down below. You mildly regret not bringing your jacket, but with a long sleeve shirt you aren’t too uncomfortable.
The driver tells you that only the tea at this higher elevation is really good. He takes you down a mountain path surrounded by tea trees on which large spiders have built impressive spiderwebs, and you walk under the webs. He shows you that the best tea leaves are the buds on the very end of the branches.
Serving tea in a mountain teahouse
The driver takes you to a teahouse, newly built out of concrete, owned by friends. In the teahouse, his friend, also Hani, serves you white tea that is quickly steeped in hot water—up to 20 steepings are permitted. They feed you black peanuts and other snacks, and the teahouse wife sings a couple of Hani songs for your entertainment. Then they show you the back room where they bake and dry the tea leaves.
An 800 year old tea tree
After that, the driver takes you uphill to a spot where you walk down another mountain path to a locally famous tea tree. The tree is famous for its age: 800 years. The path, wide and well-constructed, then winds back up around the mountain to exit down the road where the driver picks you up after a 40-minute walk on the mountain path. As you walk the path, more trees are labeled for your edification. It’s quite a nice walk and far more pleasant than the one you took two days ago surrounded by waves of tourists. There are a few others on the path, but not enough to distract you from the quietude and the beautiful scenery (though it would be more beautiful if the fog lifted). An hour later you are back down the mountain and resting in your hotel.
Looking at jewelry in the night market in Jinghong
Later that evening your driver takes you to a night market in the middle of town. Row after row of shops selling exotic clothing and photography shops where you can dress up and have your photo taken. In the night market, there are food stalls and plenty of shops selling various knick knacks. It’s a lively place, “people mountain and people sea” as the Chinese say (meaning, big crowds).
Walking up the stairs to the Big Bodhisattva
Day four is your last day in Banna, and your flight back to Shanghai (a four-hour flight) is set for the evening. Around noontime, your driver takes you to the Big Buddha located on a hill overlooking the city from the north. You walk several sets of stairs up the hill, reaching the main hall, then the great Bodhistatva atop the hill, then a chedi complex behind that. It’s a rather long and hot hike up the stairs and takes at least 30 minutes of steady walking to get to the top. You enjoy the view from the hilltop and all the iconography and statuary of the various buildings—the elephants, nagas (snakelike dragonish lionfish beasts that grace the stairs) and other fantastical beings.
The Mei Mei Cafe in Jinghong
After coming back down from the hilltop, you tell the driver to go into town where you will rest at a café. Some friends who came here long ago recommended the Mei Mei Café, so you head there and are not disappointed. It’s a fine café with western food, great coffee and even better homemade ice cream. The café itself is in an oldish building, surrounded by greenery with outdoor seating in the front (where a string of cafes may be found) and in the back. It’s in the Jinglan hotel complex.
Then it’s time to head home to Shanghai and to the cold grey dreary winter, but you are carrying back fond memories of a family adventure, which though not quite as adventuresome as your last visit 26 years ago, will still be remembered for a long time to come. And hopefully, next time you will not wait so long before returning to Banna.