Banna

What makes traveling in Yunnan so intriguing is that half the people who live there aren't Chinese. They belong to a hodgepodge of ethnic minorities increasingly confined to the jungles and highlands around the Lao and Myanmar borders.
The town of Xiding is just a few miles from Myanmar and is little more than a mud road winding along the mountainside with wood and brick houses precariously perched on either side. Many houses are level with the ground on one side and stilted on the other, with livestock underneath. Residents derive what little income they have from farming the hills for puer tea, prized by the Chinese for its medicinal qualities.
Most days of the week the town is drab and unassuming. But on Thursday mornings the town comes alive. The weekly market draws local Aini people as well as people from the Dai and Bulang minorities. The men are pretty non-descript. Some are there to butcher hogs or sell fish. But most spend the day playing cards, smoking, and drinking bai jiu, Chinese rice liquor. It's the women that give life to the market. Aini women typically wear navy blue dresses and checkered headdresses, and some still wear the elaborate bead and metal-work headdresses. Dai women are identified by their bright floral patterns and at the market are mostly selling satay-like BBQ. The Bulang women dress mostly in black and the older women wear large black turbans.
The Thursday market in Xiding is one of the last hold-outs of a vanishing lifestyle. The nearest ATM is only two hours away by bus.

Residential Xiding. The market takes place "downtown," a concrete encased public square near the road the is the town's only connection to the outside world.

No need for a barn. Plenty of space for the animals beneath the house.

This little piggy went to market...

Couple of pork chops, some bacon, hold the ash.

Colors of the Thursday market.

Aini women make up the majority of the market's participants. In addition to the tea plantations they grow vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplants for sale at the market.

Aini woman in traditional headdress, traditional blue smock, and traditional red polo shirt.

Dai woman fanning the coals while preparing traditional BBQ. Best not to ask what the meat is. It's grilled and it's spicy and that's all you need to know.

Dai on the right grilling BBQ, Aini on the left salivating. Mmmmmm, spicy mystery meat.

Look, a baby! Everyone likes babies.

Look, a dentist. Everyone likes... oh wait, that looks painful. Check out the teeth displayed for sale on the table.

I think this might be the anesthesiologist.

Dali

When I went to Dali 10 years ago the only place for a backpacker to stay was the appropriately communist Guesthouse Number 2. Don't ask what happened to Number 1. The town was a great place to kick back with a cup of Yunnan coffee and a yak cheese pizza and absorb some local color.
When I got off the bus at Old Dali's South Gate last month I was shocked to find streets swarming with tour groups and "traditional" architecture renovated to a Disnified characture of itself. The once run-down town is now spotless. Armies of little old ladies in bright yellow jackets scour the streets, sweeping even the drainage canals that run down either side of the street. Huguo Lu, a.k.a. "Foreigner Street," is crawling with backpackers, bars, cafes, handcraft shops, and hippie boutiques specializing clothing made from hemp. Ten years ago there was Guesthouse No. 2, the Tibetan Cafe and the Yunnan Cafe. Now there are more guesthouses and cafes than any guidebook woud even attempt to list. Guesthouse No. 2 and the Yunnan are long gone. The Tibetan moved to nearby Renmin Lu in search of lower rent. One shop owner told me she used to pay 200 RMB (USD$ 25) a month to rent on Huguo Lu. Now the rents are as much as 5,000 RMB (USD$625) a month.

Not just for backpackers anymore. A nearby airport and better roads have opened Dali up to a major tourism boom.

Despite the influx of tourism Dali is still a great place to hang out. Off the main tourist strips parts of the old town still retain some of the original charm. Walk in any direction and you quickly leave town behind.

The streets of Xizhou, about 20 min north of Dali by minibus, are mostly empty duiring the day as all able bodies are out in the fields.

Bai minority woman out in the fields. Either spreading fertilizer or pesticide. hopefully not too toxic because everyone I saw was handling it with bare hands.

Bai women in Xizhou.

Bai woman taking veggies to market.

I met Yang Guo Du in the town square of Xizhou. He said "hello," as many rural Chinese do when they see a Westerner. But then he started speaking English in complete sentences. Nearly made me drop my wantons. Yang is an 84-year-old retired teacher. He told me about the American army in Xizhou to fight the Japanese during World War II.

Retro-post

Now that I'm out of the e-desert that is China, now that I'm no longer a danger to myself and have the freedom to view my own blog, I'm ready to get this thing up and running.