RED CHINA
Red China - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Red China | |||||
| By: Hilary Doling, Issue 28 – Spring 2006 | |||||
| (Remote Chinese Provinces, China) | |||||
| SCARLET LANTERNS, CRIMSON SILKS AND FIELDS OF PINK RHODODENDRONS MAKE UP THE COLOURS OF YUNNAN. THIS REMOTE CHINESE PROVINCE IS A PLACE OF HIGH MOUNTAINS, OLD VILLAGES AND NEW LUXURY. | |||||
| I am lounging on a bed strewn with rose petals, a giant red lantern above me, in a villa so grand I feel like a Qing dynasty empress. Like the Chinese aristocratic residences of old, my villa has an upturned tiled roof to stop my fortune from falling earthwards. There is also a private garden surrounded by high, silver- grey walls and my own personal plunge pool. My villa is one of 55 single storey ‘palaces’ at the newly opened Banyan Tree Lijiang built in the shadow of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan province. Outside its walls staff in mandarin collars and brocaded silk float down long, silent pathways lined with bamboo and lit at night by lamps shaped like dragon eggs. At the centre of the resort is a lake presided over by a pagoda, where huge red lanterns hang on trees like plump tomatoes on a vine. It is so peaceful and sumptuous here that, just like the ancient rulers, I feel cut off from the frantic pace of China as if I were within the walls of my own Forbidden City. Yunnan in the far South-West of China, is a city better known to Chinese tourists than to overseas visitors. The Chinese are drawn to this mysterious, mountainous region because of the scenery and the chance to mix with the twenty-five minority tribes that still live in the region. There is more ethnic diversity here than almost anywhere else in China. In the UNESCO world heritage listed old town of Lijiang, wood-framed buildings squat by the side of canals draped with weeping willows and crossed by tiny half-moon bridges like something off a willow patterned plate. Bamboo birdcages and scarlet lanterns hang from doorframes. Women of the once-matriarchal Naxi tribe still wear traditional costume and still seem to rule, managing to bargain fiercely with shoppers while simultaneously playing murderous games of mahjong. We stop for lunch in a little restaurant over-looking a green tea coloured canal, and eat leafy vegetables in ginger, lotus bulbs, spicy chicken, yoke-yellow omelets and mounds of snowy rice. We eat well everywhere in Yunnan, from five star to the tiniest café. At the family cafes we go into the kitchens and make our choices from mounds of fresh vegetables and herbs. It’s a method that means we always end up with far too much, it all looks so good, but the bill is always reasonable so nobody minds. From Lijiang we take the high road to the northwest of Yunnan, to Zhongdian, now officially renamed Shangri-La. James Hilton wrote his classic book Lost Horizon in 1933 and his story of Shangri-La a remote mountain paradise untouched by time, captured the world’s imagination. Clearly the ‘Beijing Bureaucrats’ hope those in search of utopia will now head to Zhongdian. Our little bus wheezes its way up the Yunnan-Tibet Highway following the path of the upper Yangtze. Ahead of us are steep mountains and plunging valleys, which alternate as frequently as the folds of a fan. We stop at one viewing point and stare out across the peaks; over one range is Tibet, in another direction, Burma. I walk down the winding path towards the furthest point and a young monk appears from behind a rock and beckons me to follow. Which is how my companions and I come to be blessed by a Living Buddha* in an open pavilion at the edge of the clouds as giant incense sticks send swirls of smoke out over the valley far below. We leave his presence with silk scarves as white as the snow-capped peaks draped around our necks, dizzy with the heady view and the experience. Maybe this really is the entrance to Shangri-la after all. We stop off at Shigu village where a sharp turn in the river has worn an extraordinary V shape bend in rock. It was across this stretch of water that Kublai Khan came, and later the Red Army during its Long March. Further on, at Tiger Leaping Gorge, only 30 metres wide at its narrowest point (hence the possibility of a wide leap), we stare down at the wild, white water foaming far below. Our brave little bus climbs inwards and upwards past tiny villages with mud packed houses, terraces of tobacco and mountains dotted with the rare Himalayan blue poppy. Eventually we arrive at Shangri-La, where the rural Khampa Tibetan people live. We check-in to the Gyalthang Dzong hotel, a Colours of Angsana hotel (little sister brand to Banyan Tree) with orange curtained doorways and raised bed platforms reminiscent of a Tibetan monastery. Fittingly we are following in the footsteps of the Panchen Lama, the Chinese-appointed second in line to the Dalai Lama who has stayed the week before. However, none of us has his room which must remained untouched for ten days after his visit. The excitement in town is not all because the Panchen Lama recently passed through; it is the annual Horse Festival and the Khampa Tibetans, decedents of wild mountain horsemen are determined to prove they still have the skills. The stands are crowded with monks, locals who love to gamble and women in traditional Khampa costumes with vibrant pink headscarves so bright you’d think they’d scare the horses. Except that the tough little ponies themselves are decked out in so many coloured ribbons they wouldn’t look out of place on a fairground carousel. Our Abercrombie and Kent guide, Gerald Hatherley, is fluent in Mandarin and teaches us to yell ‘faster, faster’ so loudly that we’re asked to step back from the rails. The sight of strange westerners screeching like something out of the last act of the Peking Opera is unsettling some of the riders, one who attempts to acknowledge our enthusiastic support almost fall off, and serious bets are at stake. In the old town of Shangri-la I resist a yak tail duster (I don’t think Australian customs would approve), but buy a beautiful hand-painted Thanka, a religious painting bordered with brocade. Later that day at the Songzhanglin Temple an old monk interprets it for me by the light of a dozen smoky candles. The temple was almost destroyed during the Cultural Revolution but has now been restored. Nevertheless it still has a strange timeless feel as if it has been there forever. Its dark interiors are full of the most beautifully painted walls, its roofs glow gold in the afternoon sun as monks in saffron robes scurry across its open courtyards. That evening back in the old town the feeling of being out of time continues as townsfolk of all ages gather for traditional dancing, the square is packed with people moving as one in a slow, centuries-old sequence. The old women in their traditional pink hats look like peonies swaying in the wind, the young men spice things up a bit by putting their baseball caps on backwards, but they too keep to the steps. I join them in the dance; it is irresistible, they grin only slightly as my companion and I shimmy right as everyone else goes left. I can hear the poetic Chinese description now; instead of the Jade Dragon Sleeping, the Looking at the Past Pavilion, or the Tree of Ten Thousand Blossoms, we are Westerners with No Rhythm Dancing. Clearly we are in need of some help. Perhaps a foot massage will do the trick? We head to the Xinhua Foot Therapy Massage Centre in the new town and sit in a row in large black vinyl chairs giggling like schoolgirls as the proficient masseurs de-stress not only our feet but our backs and shoulders too. Only two sounds punctuate the silence; our occasional squeaks as a particularly painful reflex point is discovered and the sound of the oversized TV in the corner thumping out a talent show that looks like Chinese Idol, with young hopefuls belting out strangely mangled versions of Stairway to Heaven for the enthusiastic studio audience. “Jackie Chan”, we yell as the film star appears on screen kung fu kicking away dandruff in a shampoo ad. “Jackie Chan,” the masseurs yell back, happy to have found some common ground between themselves and these odd women with the strangely sensitive feet. Our next stop is a world away from Jackie and his fans, an hour out of town in the middle of a remote valley and currently reached by a dirt road is the ultra-luxurious Banyan Tree Ringha. This extraordinary property has 33 villas, which were originally traditional Tibetan houses and were moved beam by carved beam to this new spot. Guests sleep on the top floor; where in the past whole families ate, slept and lived out life’s dramas. Downstairs (where cattle once rested) is a vast bathroom and dressing room surrounded by regal red lacquer furniture. In this region you can appreciate Tibetan culture much more easily than in Lhasa, where most of the guides are Han Chinese. In this remote part of Yunnan you can mix with Tibetans freely. Our guide, Namkha, takes us to visit his family home where we sit on one side of a smoky hearth while his extended relatives sit on the other, all grinning inanely at each other as people who share no common language do. His mother serves us un-leaven bread and pungent cheese and small cups of bittersweet yak tea, as our faces grow rosy in the firelight. Banyan tree Ringha is amazingly beautiful and the views are breathtaking, in more ways than one. Perched at 3200 metres above sea level the resort offers inroom oxygen canisters and calming ginger tea for the 20 per cent of guests who experience some form of altitude sickness. Up in this rarefied air even a walk up a gentle slope can leave you out of breath, heart pounding. “Take it slowly, relax,” advise the gentle staff. Always one to heed advice I head for the amazing spa; two floors of old Chinese antiques dark polished floor boards and rich red carpets swirling with flowers and dragons, and relax completely by getting horizontal on the massage table. After my Gui Shi hot stone therapy I feel as if I’m floating a further metre or so above the ground and can tackle anything. Which is just as well because we’re about to climb the many steep steps to the Temple of the Five Wisdom Buddhas turning a series of prayer wheels as we go. Mostly I’m just praying I’ll make it to the top, but once there the spirit of the place overwhelms me. The temple itself is as rural as its surroundings, with chickens running around in the dirt in the outer courtyard there is no doubt about the devoutness of the pilgrims who visit here. Thousands of prayer flags are strung from every tree like fairy washing fluttering in the wind, the new ones bright with hope, the old ones grown tatty with time as the pilgrims’ prayers are reclaimed by the elements. Here and there smoke from outdoor shrines curls through the canopy of coloured flags and up into the crisp mountain air. I too string a line of flags between the fir trees and leave my own wishes to the wind. *monks who have reached a certain level of enlightenment | |||||
| Details: Tour: Abercrombie & Kent has a range of exclusive independent tours with private vehicle and guide. A nine-day Mountains of the South tour includes Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Zhongdian. www.abercrombiekent.com.au | |||||
| Stay: Banyan Tree offers a variety of packages linking its Yunnan resorts that include transfers between the two. www.banyantree.com or stay at Gyalthang Dzong Hotel www.coloursofangsana.com | |||||
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