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Xishuangbanna

Posted on 21. Mar, 2010 by yoyo in Yunnan

Xishuangbanna is the chinese Thailand. Or maybe the Thai frontier. It’s more like an outpost of south east Asia, set in southern Yunnan.
Walking the streets of Jinghong, the region’s capital, you notice the difference immidiately. People are darker skinned, they wear shorter cloths, tree-tops shade you from the sun and different cuultures show their presence. Indians, Thais, Burmese and more.
There isn’t much to do in Jinghong itself. Other than the small local market and some parks. The area around it is a different story indeed. Minority vilagges scattered in tea-tree teraces, jungles and rivers.
There is lots of travelling information available at the Meimei cafe. Including step-by-step travel logs and more.
We went for a 3 nights trek between the villages: Xiding, Longpang, Zhanglang, Manwa, Manmai, Manxi and Daluo.
The trek took us through tea terraces, jungles and small vilagges and their fields. Staying with locals every night enabled us not to take sleeping bags. The fact that Xishuangbanna is growing in popularity among tourists means that the locals ‘know the drill’and will charge you money for staying with them. A reasonable pay of 30 Yuan (reasonable to my opinion) gets you a bad dinner and breakfast. And sometimes a few shots of Bai-Jio (Chinese for rice wine).

The following is a translation of the travel log we used for our trip. It waswritten by Tal and Einat, 2 Israeli travelers I know personnaly. I coppied their log from the Meimei cafe guestbook.

From Jinghong take a bus to Menghai (No. 2 bus station, 15 RMB, 1 hour). From Menghai there is a 15:30 bus to Xiding (15RMB, 1.5 hours). It’s possible either to stay in Xiding (there’s a guesthouse behind the post office) or to get off at the big budhha and stuppa on the hill to the left of the road, about 40 minutes walk back from Xiding. If you stay in Xiding you will need to walk back on the road you came with.
To the left of the steps climbing to the stuppa ther is a dirt road going down, take it and keep going down untill you reach Longpang, about 30 minutes. In Longpang the trail becomes a concrete road, and winds down and south. Where the concrete road turns a sharp right there is a small shop and a trail in to the forest infront of it. Take it. The trail is tricky, but it doesn’t matter which way you go, as long as you go down to the river below Longpang. On the other side of the river make your way up on the ridge, a few trails lead the same way, and will take you to Zhanglang.climbing about 2 hours. This is a small village with a shop and a nice monastery, both on the road above the houses. From the monastery a trail leads down (going left if you’re coming from the village), this trail takes you to a small hill with some more houses on it, take the trail that circles it from the left. About 10 minutes away from the monastery you’ll reach a big tree with trails on both sides. Take the left. This trail takes you into the forest, by two small resting sheds, one with a small well (with an elephant statue). About 30 minutes from the tree you reach a dirt road, take a left. The roads winds and winds and takes you to a stone bridge over a wide stream. A nice place to wash. On the other side of the river there’s a resting shed where you can either climb up with the dirt road or the walking trail. The walking trail is nice a secluded. Both roads go to Manwa. In Manwa you can stay with a local family just by the shop. They charge 50RMB so haggle befor you come in. In order to go from Manwa to Manmai no on the dirt road go south-east from the village square (the small shop) and where the trail turns left go straight (dirt path) between the houses. After about 10 mi utes you take a right on a walking trail that climbs up. 20 minutes of walking will take you to an opening in the woods with a small pagoda and stuppa. At the small resting hut take a left and an immidiate right. 30 minutes of climbing and you’ll reach a dirt road, take a left for another 30 minutes. This is a T junction at the edge of Bada village. Taking a right will get you into the village, where there are a few shops and a small tea factory. Takin left is a beautiful road paved with stones, that goes through tea-tree terraces. After about one hour you reach a small resting shed on a junction with a trail to the right. Take that right. Another one hour’s walk and you reach Manmai. Here you can ask around at a few houses for accomodation. There’s a small shop in the center. From the center take the stairs climbing between the water pipe and the small shop with the sign that says ‘co-op’. Climb up to the dirt road and take a right. 35 minutes walking and you reach a second wooden hut and a water pipe. Take the dirt path on the hut’s left, after about 200 meters take a right to a smaller path. After 10 minutes the dirt road ends and you continue on a walking trail. This trail is ellusive, but it’s there. It goes down and down for about 40 minutes, and than you reach a running stream. The path goes on for another 40 monies untill you reach a small hut. 30 meters to the left there’s a broken bridge. On the other side of the bridg there is a trail climbing up and right. The trail goes through a few wood mills, stick to it. After about 90 minutes you reach dirt road, take a left (south east). 20 minutes and you’ll reach Manxi. From here 3 hours on the dirt road and you’ll be in Daluo. There’s a bus from here to Jinghong at 14:00. At least there was when we were there.

Tips: the best way to know the way is ask. Have the names of the places written down, preferably in Chinese. Ask everyone you meet.
Bring mosquito repellent.
Bring some toys to give to your hosts children.
Bring a hat.
Enjoy

Tags: blogsherpa, China, Yunnan