Allegra McEvedy's food guide to China's Yunnan province(3)
Lijiang was pleasing on so many levels: the air was clean, the people happy and colourful, the landscape breathtaking. Nothing brought that home more than the spectacular outdoor show Impressions of Lijiang, which was choreographed by one of China's most famous directors, Zhang Yimou, who also did the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Sitting in light drizzle in an open air theatre, with cloud-topped mountains in the distance, and the story of the Naxi people being told through song and costume by hundreds of locals – many on horseback – was the best surreal moment of the trip.
We caught a bus to Lijiang's outskirts to visit the Black Dragon Pool, a temple-filled nature park and water source since the Ming Dynasty, and we walked along a stream into the old part of town, past street vendors selling corn cakes, persimmons and kebabs to kids on their way home from school. I enjoyed the architecture, much of it restored after the 1996 earthquake, and I loved the fact that the bookshops were confident enough and far enough away from Beijing to sell copies of Jung Chang's Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China in Mandarin, which is still officially banned. Lijiang had an aura of happiness and freedom – the first time I'd sensed these two qualities on our trip.
From there we drove northeast, towards Tibet. We crossed the old border, entering an area that was part of Tibet until 1951, when Mao Zedong carved off two corners after invading it, giving one to Sichuan and the other to Yunnan. But the people there remain Tibetan in all but nationality.
We stopped for lunch at the Dali hotel near Qiaotou: our Chinese guide had taken trouble to avoid touristy restaurants, but in this remote spot there was little choice; still, it was a far cry from British Chinese, with the majority of dishes being vegetarian. We ate piles of rosti-like deep-fried spud sticks; stir-fried long beans with batons of chilli; torn oyster mushrooms in ginger and soy; battered, fried aubergines with tomatoes; protein in the form of cold pig's liver and a beautiful whole baked fish.
To burn off all that grease we hiked down (and back up again) the 1,000 steps into the infamous, churning Tiger Leaping Gorge, the most impressive point on the Yangtze river and reportedly the deepest in the world. It was well worth it to look at nature's giant, swirling milkshake.
Then on to what was until recently called Zhongdian (and before that Gyalthang in Tibetan), but was renamed Shangri-la in 2001. The authorities decided this remote Tibetan place, in the foothills of the Himalayas, was the mythical location recounted in James Hilton's cult 1933 book, Lost Horizon, and renamed it to attract tourists. It worked: a friend told me that when she visited Zhongdian in 1995, there was one guesthouse and you had to order your hot water a week in advance; now there's a population of 50,000, a good few hotels – all with running water – and you even get a full signal on your mobile. The centre felt slightly touristy, but we also felt a sense of achievement for having reached such an isolated spot.
Foodwise, Shangri-la is all about meat and preparation for the harsh winter that lasts nearly six months. The main crops are barley (for the humans) and grass (for the animals), and equal importance is attached to both. Turnips are thrown over huge wooden structures to dry in the sunlight, but essentially all fruit and veg is imported; not much grows up here. Interestingly we encountered dairy for the first time in China – of the yak variety of course: yak cheeses of various kinds, yak milk in our tea and yak butter on our toast.
Quni, our local guide, spoke with pride about how the local pigs have hair as jet black as his, so they too can absorb the heat when the sun shines, and proudly explained rhubarb was originally found in this region, before being shared with the rest of the world.
The dish to eat up here is Tibetan hotpot, made from a bubbling stock of pigs' knuckles, pork ribs, chunks of ham, dried mushrooms and, said our chef, "local medicinal herbs" the most famous being goji berry. You are then presented with plates of ingredients: meat (chicken, pork, and the ubiquitous yak), seafood (scallops, prawns and fishballs) and lots of veggies like cabbages, mushrooms and lettuce, to drop into the fire-fuelled clay pot "at your leisure" (a key phrase in the hotpot experience). You then make a dipping sauce by mixing three little pots to your liking: chopped chillies, minced garlic and fine matchsticks of ginger with soy sauce. After a day doing whatever they do up here at this extreme height and in unfiltered light, this is exactly what I'd want to sit down to eat too – especially if rounded off with some local barley wine.
The hotpot was sold all over town, we ate excellent examples at Da Ling Kezhan and in our hotel, the Banyan Tree. Being so high up, the hotel also provided free oxygen canisters in our room which aided our late-night attacks of high altitude giggles to a tirade of yak jokes:
"What do you call an abstract expressionist painter?"
"Yak-son Pollock!"
Well, it's funny when you're two miles above sea level and full of barley wine.
We also saw breathtaking Ganden Sumtseling gompa, the largest Tibetan monastery in Yunnan, set up by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1679. Photos of the current Dalai Lama covered the walls, which is highly discouraged if not illegal – another testament to their attitude to politics in this remote corner.
From there we flew back to Kunming. Everything I'd read about it, from its reputation as a laid-back and cosmopolitan city, to its nickname "City of Eternal Spring", led me to believe we were in for a special time, but we were stymied again by roadworks: we visited just days before the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic, so everything had ground to a standstill in order to get the new ring road finished. I don't think that I've ever been anywhere that is pushing so aggressively through its present to get to its future.
Our time here was rewarded by tasting tea, which can be done all over the city. This province is China's largest supplier of tea, including the world-famous, highly-prized pu'er tea, from the south west. I'm not quite sure that I understood the appeal of pu'er – especially at around $60 for a wheel about the size of a discus, which is how it's sold, but it is ranked as the number one tea in China. We also tried a tannic, rich black tea and a light and fragrant jasmine, but my personal favourite was the oolong, which was both deeply interesting and very drinkable.
Our final meal was at the Shiping Huiguan, on the edge of a lake in Cuihu park. Talk about going out with a bang! Here we ate the hottest meal so far: tofu dishes (a speciality of this restaurant), chicken (shredded with peanuts), fish (white and filleted, with peppers and corn) or pork (belly, with bok choy). And surprisingly, this far south, we were offered fried yak cheese, which looked a bit like halloumi, with a dried chilli dipper.
We also tried the most famous dish of the area – "crossing the bridge noodle". The story goes that a diligent wife would get upset because by the time she had taken lunch to her scholarly husband on the island in the middle of the lake where he studied, the soup was always cold. One day she discovered that if she kept a layer of chicken fat on top of the broth, and carried the bits to go in the soup across in little bowls on the side, it would stay hot.
As we walked back to the hotel, the streets smelled strongly of curry: this was the food of the southern part of the province, belying its borders with Burma and Laos, which sounded and smelled to me like a whole other taste trip.
Getting there
American tour operator China Road (001 206 818 9767, chinaroads@comcast.net) offers a 14-day tour, taking in Yunnan province, starting in Beijing and ending in Hong Kong, for US$4,300. The price includes all internal flights, ground transport, most meals, accommodation in five-star hotels, transfers and the service of a guide. Open-jaw tickets, flying from Beijing to London and returning from Hong Kong to London, start at around £450 inc taxes, with kayak.co.uk.
