Yunnan

Yunnan means "south of the clouds," and the name suits a province that stretches from tropical rainforest to glaciated peaks of more than 6,000 meters. A vacation in Yunnan takes you through old towns like Lijiang and Dali, to Tibetan monasteries and the Hani rice terraces – and to a diversity of peoples found nowhere else in China.

Landscapes from the Himalaya to the Mekong

In the northwest, Yunnan touches the foothills of the Himalaya: here the Yangtze, Mekong, and Salween rivers run almost parallel for hundreds of kilometers through deep gorges, an area protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The center of the province is a high plateau at nearly 2,000 meters, with lakes such as Dianchi near Kunming and Erhai near Dali. In the south, around Jinghong in Xishuangbanna, the climate turns tropical, with rubber plantations, jungle, and wild elephants.

Sights in Yunnan

Kunming, the "City of Eternal Spring," is the starting point for the Shilin Stone Forest with its bizarre limestone pillars. Dali lies between the Cangshan mountains and Erhai Lake; its old town with the Three Pagodas is the center of Bai culture, and villages such as Xizhou around the lake are well worth a visit. Lijiang enchants with the cobbled lanes and canals of the Naxi old town, a World Heritage Site beneath the towering Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. North of there, trekkers hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world. Shangri-La, formerly Zhongdian, has the Tibetan old town of Dukezong in Jiantang and Songzanlin Monastery. In the south, the Yuanyang rice terraces, also a World Heritage Site, offer an unforgettable sight at sunrise. At Erhai Lake, the stretch between Dali and Shuanglang is easy to explore by bicycle or electric scooter, passing fishing villages and Bai houses with white walls and painted gables. In Jinghong, botanical gardens and Dai temples show the tropical side of the province.

Peoples and Culture

About a third of the population belongs to one of the numerous minority groups: Yi, Bai, Hani, Dai, Naxi, Tibetans, Miao, and many more. Each group has its own traditional dress, festivals, and building styles. The Naxi preserve the Dongba script, one of the last pictographic writing systems in the world, and the Dai in Xishuangbanna celebrate the Water-Splashing Festival in April. Markets in mountain villages, where vendors in traditional dress offer their wares, are especially impressive. Yunnan was also a stop on the Tea Horse Road, along which tea was carried all the way to Tibet.

Food and Drink

The best-known dish is Crossing-the-Bridge rice noodle soup: raw meat, vegetables, and noodles are added to hot chicken broth at the table. In summer, wild mushrooms from the mountain forests are a specialty, along with Yunnan ham from Xuanwei, Rushan goat cheese from Dali, and the sour-spicy cuisine of the Dai with lemongrass. Pu-erh tea comes from Xishuangbanna and the area around Pu'er, pressed into cakes and aged for years. For breakfast in Kunming, locals like to eat erkuai, grilled filled rice cakes.

Getting There and Best Time to Visit

Kunming is a major aviation hub for Southeast Asia, and high-speed trains run to Dali and Lijiang as well as, via the new railway, all the way to Vientiane in Laos. The best time to visit is the dry season from October to April; summers are rainy, and at high elevations like Shangri-La it gets very cold in winter.