More than a country, China is a continent. The diversity of habitats, landscapes and cultures that it houses is amazing, and varies from the cold plains of Harbin, in, northeast, where a normal winter day they do -25º and the greatest attraction is the, to the, in the desert region of Sinkiang, where in summer the thermometers easily reach the 50º. A good sample of this diversity is the province of Yunnan, at the southwest end of the country: with a somewhat lower extension than Spain (394,000 square kilometers) varies from tropical jungles and southern rice fields, border with, Vietnam and Laos, to those in the north, where culture and landscape are eminently tibetan. In addition, it is the province with more minority ethnic groups. Of the 56 official ethnic groups of the country, 26 inhabit here. Therefore, a trip through this unique province is an immersion in the most unknown, more traditional and more varied China.
If we start from South to North, the first stop would be on the Yuanyang rice terraces, seven hours from Kunming road, the capital of Yunnan. An unreal landscape, and is one of the most beautiful interactions between man and nature. The hania town that arrived more than 1,000 years ago to the slopes of the Ailao mountains, displaced from the fertile plains by other strongest peoples, began to be aware of the slopes as the only resource to obtain. The result: more than 11,000 hectares of staggered mountain with an impossible game of curves and symmetries. Between October and March, when the pools are full of water, but the rice has not yet sprouted, it is a show to see dawn on them from an elevated point of view, delighting in the game of lights and colors that mutate in the water mirror of the rates. Between May and September, when the rice has sprouted, the landscape becomes a palette of electric and luminous green.
About two hours north of Yuanyuang along the G553 road, which gives a rodeo to avoid the mountains, Jianshui appears, a city of half a million inhabitants in southern Yunnan that retains a picturesque main pedestrian street and an imposing door of the old city, the Chao Yang Lou, now isolated in the middle of a broken noise. It was an important stop on commercial routes between Yunnan and Vietnam. So travelers stop in JianShui is through the Zhu gardens, a huge mansion built by during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) in the center of the old city. It is considered one of the best examples of residential gardens in southern China. The enclosure is 20,000 square meters, with more than 40 pavilions and rooms. He had been finishing them for more than 30 years. The entire group distils symmetry and harmony while an army of workers, some dressed to the old way, strive daily to keep it in perfect condition.
The next stop is already very close to the provincial capital. This is the Shilin Karst, better known as the stone forest, the typical formation of limestone rock eroded by the effect of weathering that in Spain we know well (the, the enchanted city of Cuenca or the Karst of Larra-Belagua, in Navarra, are similar geological formations). Only in China, like everything, it is the beast. High limestone pinnacles modeled by the rock follow each other over 350 square kilometers. They seem giant stalactites or petrified trees, hence their name. Much of the enclosure, is adapted to visits with cattle and paved paths. His fame and his proximity to Kunming makes them reach newspapers loaded with national tourists; A massification that sometimes prevents silent for such a unique place.
Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, is a modern city of about eight million inhabitants without too many attractions for the visitor, but it is a good place to make a night on the north. I recommend you take the opportunity to go to Kunming Conference Hall to see Yunnan impressionsa show of traditional dances and choirs of the ethnic groups of this province created by the choreographer and dancer Yang Liping. It is a superb show, with a choreography, costumes and first quality staging that has already left international tour several times.
After doing night in the city, it is time to leave north taking advantage of the high -speed train that China is building from Yunnan to Southeast Asia. The next stop is, the only historical city of this part of the country that retains complete the entire lungerangular perimeter of its walls and four doors. To one of them can be climbed free of charge to enjoy from above a privileged view of the curved roofs that cover the city. It was the capital of an important kingdom and grew thanks to the fertility of the lands in which it is based, watered by Lake Erhai. Its historical center is perfect, with the best samples of traditional Chinese architecture. Although, curiously, one of the most notable buildings is a Catholic Church. It was built in 1932 in the form of a typical China pagoda by the congregation of the priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram, who was entrusted with evangelization in this remote territory. But fame devours him: it is one of the clear examples of how he has ended up completely giving up the center, whose premises are overturned to that activity, which crows its streets all year.
Much calmer and authentic is Shaxi, about 150 kilometers north of Dali. If you left Dali Escado, Shaxi will fall in love. It was also, like Dali, although much more modest, a commercial station on the horsepower and tea route, the commercial road for which products were exchanged from southern Yunnan to it. Fortunately, it has preserved its Chinese rural people planimetry in very good condition. Its place, with all the original buildings – one of them, an outdoor wood theater – is for me the most beautiful of all Yunnan.
Next stop: Lijiang. A site that will not leave anyone indifferent. On the one hand, we are in an authentic Chinese city with more than 800 years of history, declared. The historic center is a narrow and pedestrian flanked by wooden houses, brick and curved eaves typical of Naxi architecture, the majority ethnicity in the region, with a system of channels and more than 300 stone bridges of the times of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368 to 1912). They call her the “North Venice.” But fame has long been choking. If you thought there were many tourists in Dali, that is nothing for what awaits you in Lijiang. There are always people in their streets crowded with shops for tourism; And at sunset they begin to get out of crowds of you don’t know where and everything is saturated (even more). In the main square there is not a pin and the cup bars installed along the main street, strident music of the dance and gogós or singer -songwriters begins. Noise, excitement and agglomerations harm the common sense of those who believe he is visiting a place recognized by UNESCO. Lijiang’s old city is the epitome of all the evils that mass and out of control. You have to see it once in life … but I don’t know if you will like what you see.
In contrast to this consumerist madness and to finish the trip with a good taste, Shangri-La is quite the opposite. The one from Kunming ends in this unique city, capital of the Yunnan Tibetan region, located at 3,380 meters, prelude to the Himalayas plains. It was previously called Zhongdian, but the Chinese authorities changed the name for the bestable Shangri-la, in honor of Lost horizonsthe 1933 novel by British writer James Hilton. In the book, Hilton recreated a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, named Shangri-la, lost in the folds of the Himalayas, place of wisdom and eternal youth where men never aged.
It could look a lot to the main attraction of this modern and real Shangri-la and for which thousands of pilgrims come here: the Songzanlin monastery, one of the great Buddhist centers in the country. A building loaded with history and extremely photogenic, with its white and red adobe walls and its golden domes trimmed against the mountains. It was built in 1678, during the mandate of the fifth, and in it they still live about 400 monks dressed in their saffron robe that are responsible for keeping it active.
The old city of Shangri-La remains a real Tibetan village of wooden houses and curled streets, although in January 2014 a fire destroyed more than half of its houses. It was quickly rebuilt as it was by the Chinese government and today the only footprint that remains of that tragedy is the clearest color of new homes compared to those that did not burning. Shangri-la, the old Zhongdian, is the perfect end to a trip through this different and so varied China that begins in the jungles of Indochina and ends in the.
