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D1---In the morning, drive in the
west to Menghai, a small town surrounded by rice fields and vegetable
plantations, first see a very lively and noisy market, where local people
buy all kinds of stuff everyday, meat, fresh vegetable, chicken,
fish, fruits and various native produces ethnic people brought from
mountains. Continue driving to Jingzhen to see Octagonal Pavilion, a
meeting hall of senior monks originally built 300 years ago, one of
3 most famous Theravada Buddhism buildings of province, feel
peaceful atmosphere beside an old Buddhism temple. After lunch, transfer to
the trail head, some Dai village in basin of Mengzhe, start hiking
up mountains across undergrowth and farm land, we will cross village
of Bulang people and arrive at a small village of Aini, and stay
here with local family for night. today's hiking is around 3 hours.
D2---Wake up, have a simple breakfast, continue hiking. We
will pass by several villages of Aini, cross sugar cane fields, tea
plantation and forest, en route we may meet with ethnic people
working in farmland, it's easy to greet them and start a short chat,
through which we understand more facts about their rural life.
Today's accommodation village lies in a valley, belongs to Aini
group, too. Aini is descendant of ancient Qiang Tribe, who lived
nomadic life and kept moving in the history, even today, they are
still performing their old tradition, for better water supply, for
better place to cultivate rice fields, for simple superstitious
reason... The village where we are going to stay moved to current
site around 50 years ago, and its neighbors, another two villages
moved just 1 year ago. Today's hiking is some longer, around 7
hours, several places are pretty steep, but no safety problem.
D3---A good sleep would energize us, after breakfast, we say
bye to friendly host family, start for the last section of our
walk, to climb over a mountain to the trail end along a tractor road
in shady forest. For the first part it's mainly ascent, but not
quite steep, then walking on the ridge of mountain, pretty flat and
relaxing, finally descent to a village of Bulang people, an ethnic
group who began domesticating wild tea plant for drinking the earliest in
the history of Yunnan, cross their tea plantation to trail end in
Menghun Basin, hiking finishes. After lunch at local restaurant, we drive to visit
some village of
Dai, where villagers are still making paper with tree bark
traditional way, it was used a lot in the past to record Buddhism
scriptures by monks, now mostly adopted by businessmen for packing tea
product. Drive back to Jingong, tour ends. |
