The ancient Tea Horse trading of yesteryear could today be called the Caterpillar, Red Bull & Budweiser trade.

Tea portering ended when Mao came to power in 1949. The peasants loved Mao as he redistributed  the land and each got a parcel   The long treacherous  3 month route of carrying tea up to Tibet, returning with the small Tibetan Nangchen horses at only 4.5 ' high was no longer needed to maintain a home . The peasants could live off their own parcel of land. 

History shows that in  the 13th Century China  was trading millions of  pounds of tea for 25,000 horses a year.  The more tea the porters carried the more they got paid. 

The Tea Porters Lament
Seven steps up you have to rest,
Eight steps down you have to rest,
Eleven steps flat you have to rest,
You are stupid, if you don't rest. 

The black baked tea pots of Zhongdian ( Shangri-la)

 Compacted puer tea in it's purest form. I brought this home with me but it is such a beautifully packed cake of tea leaves I cannot bring myself to break into it. 

Today when visiting the area I'm told  the Yartsa Gompo caterpillar, called Chong cao in China , has replaced the horse. This caterpillar only lives above 10,000 ft above sea level and is sold within China as the cure all for the ravages of aging at a cost of $80 per gram and rather than drink tea there are plenty of cans of Red Bull and Budweiser. Maybe I should say, as well as drinking tea there are many signs of the love of Red Bull and Budweiser. 

The Baisha Naxi Embroidery Institute

Chinese embroidery has been around for thousands of years, sadly this was banned during the cultural revolution and is now making a slow come back.  An apprenticeship at this institute can take  10-15 years to complete and the resulting work is exquisite.  These young girls are encouraged to keep working on their skills with the promise of a good share of the profits from the sale of one piece, but in between each sale they survive on the basic shelter provided by the local government.   
The fine needlework using local silk threads looks for all the world as though it has been painted with ultra fine brush strokes. I wish my photos gave a better impression of the skill required to achieve such beauty

 

 

   

The wonderful friends one makes while traveling....

Preparing to join the early morning class of Tai Chi

So was this chicken neck skin afterall?

Myself  and Fransi ( from Surabaya)  at Leaping Tiger Gorge,

Food and Wine - Baijiu, potato pancake and Tibetan Hot Pot or I could say Pfumfli, rosti and fondu Chinoise

...so what came first? The Chinese version or the Swiss version?


It was in Chengdu when my host asked me if I would like some Chinese wine; yes came my reply eager to try all aspects of their food and wine. I was led by the hand  to see the different glass jars with their potions of herbs and weird looking additives till the last one when I could definitely distinguish a dead snake in the clear liquid. With 60-80% alcoholic volume I learnt this was the Chinese national drink called Baijiu and that Chinese women don't drink it.
This was moonshine with subtle flavor changes till one reached the most refined  when it slipped down so smoothly it reminded me of the finest Swiss eau-de-vie.
Then in the middle of Yunnan province came my next  cultural culinary surprise, a potato pancake  which was exactly the same as the best Swiss rosti and totally delicious.


More surprises were to come  up in Shangri-la where we were served a Tibetan hot pot.  The two  differences to the fondu Chinoise  that I loved so much during the years we lived in Switzerland was that the Chinese dunk spam into the pot and don't turn the stock into soup to be drunk at the end of the meal. 

 
  

Yunnan, a botanical heaven

As a plant 'affectioni' , I've read  much about plantsmen who travel to China bringing back exotic new finds and always wondered where it is in China that they go, (I even have one of Dan Hinkley's rare finds in my own back yard, alas, I hate to admit that it's not doing too well.) but my trip to Yunnan to see 'THE OTHER CHINA' also opened my eyes to this botanical heaven that has given us so many of our well loved plants.
But it's not just the beauty of  the plants that was fascinating  but the advanced cross-over between plants and medicine  that is so prevalent.
Joseph Rock an Austrian American botanist spent many years in Yunnan based out of Lijiang  while working hand in hand with the Chinese Medicine man, Dr Ho who fondly remembers him.

 The early flowering Chinese plum who's perfume filled the air

 The yellow magnolia covered in snow when a rare snow storm came to visit while I was there. 

 Wild Yunnan Orange, I forget it's exact name - has an ugly skin but amazingly  sweet  and more cherry blossom trees.