Yunnan: Along the Tea Horse Road

One of our favourite restaurants in the city is Yíng Jiāng Dǎi Wèi Yuán, 66 Cuihu Beilu. At a pleasant location next to Green Lake, it serves the deliciously hot and sour cuisine of the Dai minority from Xishuangba, in southern Yunnan – a tasty fusion of Thai and Chinese cooking styles, served on fresh plantain leaves. If ‘hote and spicy’ isn’t your thing, try Yì Kēyìn Kūnmíng Lǎo Fángzi at 18-19 Jixiang Xiang, which serves traditional, milder Yunnanese food in a wonderful old courtyard house with wooden balconies and red paper lanterns.

Green Lake is where local people like to relax, do Tai Chi and congregate under the trees with their caged birds. For much of the year, huge flocks of migratory black-headed gulls also gather here, flying over the jade-green water against the backdrop of skyscrapers. You’ll also be able to see the splendid, Tang-era pagodas dating from the 9th century, and the extensive Flowers and Birds Market – a photographer’s dream.

With its evocative roofscape of blue-grey tiles, Dali’s walled town ranks among the prettiest in the country. Begin with a stroll down its cobbled main street, Renmin Lu, where shoemakers, tailors and minority people selling fresh produce ply their trade in low, wood-fronted shops. As the shadows lengthen, your guide will lead you the beautiful Three Pagodas complex, whose distinctive profile, framed by a wall of shadowy mountains and reflected in the shimmering waters of the adjacent lake, is iconic of the ancient city. The monuments date from the Tang era between the 8th and 9th centuries AD, when Dali formed park of the Nanzhao kingdom.

Boasting wonderful views over the water and some delightful traditional architecture, Xihou encapsulates the traditional charm of this distinctive, and very beautiful, part of China. You can visit the home of a local cheese maker and a rice noodle factory. And don’t miss the town’s famous milk ice-lolly shop – ‘sticky rice’ flavour is our favourite! Numerous other cultural activities are on offer for the afternoon, arranged through the lovely Linden Centre, just outside Dali, where lots of our clients like to stay.

Ringed by wooded mountains, Shaxi is carpeted with pretty Bai minority villages that have changed little since Ming times. Its main bazaar, Sideng Street, is centred around a traditional square, and the only one on the entire Tea-Horse Road to have survived the upheavals of past centuries intact. Visit the Ming-era Xingjiao temple, flanked by spectacular Guardian deities, and the old theatre, with its raised stage overlooking the eastern side of the piazza, which fills to bursting point with Bai farmers during the Friday fresh produce market.

For lunch, we recommend the wonderful Pear Blossom Organic Temple Restaurant, in the village of Diantoucun, where both the food and traditional Bai décor are exquisite. From there, venture up to see the ancient Tang-era cave temples and Buddhist shrines on Shibaoshan (‘Stone Treasure’) Mountain. If you’re feeling fit, consider the hike back down the pilgrims’ trail to the valley floor, rounded off with a meal in the atmospheric courtyard of the Old Theatre Inn, where if you’re lucky an orchestra of Bai folk musicians will be tuning up ahead of an evening performance.

Economic capital of the Naxi minority, Lijiang prospered on the back of the Tea-Horse trade, giving rise to a splendid old quarter. With its maze of winding cobbled streets, wooden houses and willow-lined streams, the area ranks among China’s great sights, despite having been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1996. It has since been extensively rebuilt and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, attracting visitors from across the world. Spend the afternoon wandering around the pretty back streets, canals and market squares with your guide.

Visits to outlying minority villages, by car or bicycle, take up the remainder of the day. A favourite of ours is Yuhu, where the Austro-American botanist and explorer Joseph Rock lived during his National Geographic expeditions of the 1920s. Some of the wonderfully evocative photographs he took are displayed in the museum. For dinner, grab a window table at 88 Snack on Wuyi Street – the best restaurant in town for Naxi cuisine. The Dongba spicy chicken is spectacular; we also loved the roasted eggplant salad!

Tiger Leaping Gorge, where the Jinsha River crashes through a vast canyon nearly 4,000 metres (12,500 ft) deep, is an obligatory stop on the road north from Lijiang. Viewing platforms allow you to admire the ferocity of the raging waters and immense walls rising to a phalanx of snow-streaked summits.

When the highway finally levels off, after a series of tortuous switchbacks, you are geographically in the Diqing Tibetan Prefecture – a fact reflected in the distinctively Tibetan style of the farmsteads glimpsed from the road. Principal attraction of its main town, Shangri-La, is a large and splendid Tibetan monastery. Our recommended hotel here occupies a restored mansion right beside the complex, facing a lake.

In the afternoon, wander around the pretty streets of the Shangri-La’s old quarter, which has been completely re-built since it was destroyed by a fire in 2014 and now hosts a wealth of small shops and cafés, framed with ornately carved wood facades.

Having checked in to your hotel and freshened up, consider an evening foray to the ‘Wide Lanes, Narrow Lanes’ pleasure district in the city, to watch a performance of traditional ‘face changing’ and Sichuanese opera.