Xishuangbanna, a Pearl Decorated by Trees

Xishuangbanna, with an area of 20,000 square kilometers, is located in the south most corner of Yunnan province. It is neighboring Myanmar Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, with a boundary of 966.3 kilometers. It is a bright pearl of southwest China, beautiful, rich and miraculous, with Lancangjiang River (Mekong River, praised as the oriental Danube) passing through from north to south. There are three state ports, one provincial port, and six highways, one of which connects Laos and Myanmar, forming an Omni bearing transport network on water, land and air.

It has a population of 840,000, among which Dai minority takes 28.8%, Han 25%, Hani 19.04%, nine other Ethnic Groups 24.76%. Xishuangbanna Reign consists of three parts: Jinghong City (the capital city), Menghai County and Mengla County, with totally19 scenic areas covering over 800 scenic spots. Xishuangbanna, as a National Scenic Resort, is rich in nature, historical and cultural resources, noted for the multifarious folklore, rain forests, rare plants and wildlife, etc. Its major tourist attractions include Menglun Tropical Botanical Garden, Manfeilong Pagodas.

I. HighlightsMysterious Rainforest

Xishuangbanna is the only tropical rainforest reserve in China boasting the largest equatorial rainforest ecosystem which is best preserved. It’s also a rare gene pool in the world, thus regarded as a nature wonder on the earth.

Since the Tertiary period, Xishuangbanna is in the area of tropical monsoon climate, so it has never been destroyed by the south-moving glacier. Ancient biota is able to develop and evolve here. In Xishuangbanna, the tropical monsoon nature protection zone covers an area of 3,600,000, of which 700,000 is well-kept as primary forest.

There are 20,000 species of plants here, 5,000 of which are making up one sixth of the total in the country, and about 300 kinds of plants are peculiar and rare. Fifty-one species are in the list of precious and endangered plants protected by the state. They are as follows: fern on tree, hip-liked fruit, wooden lotus, chicken feather tree, cycad and so on. The trees mentioned above have lived and multiplied on this land more than one million years. They are the “living-fossils” in China.

The Folk Customs of Dai Ethnic Minority

Dai Ethnic Minority is the most populous Ethnic group of Xishuangbanna. With rich history and culture, Dai Ethnic People has its own language and own writing system which is written in an alphabetic script. Dai people believe in Buddhism and take peacock and elephant as their mascots. Traditionally, Dai women wore tight-sleeved short dresses and sarongs which could demonstrate their slim figures perfectly. The Dai women’s clothes have a variety of styles. Women often wear white, light green, sky-blue or pink tight underwear with Jewel-collared short skirt outside, with buttons on the front or on the right. The shirt has long and slim sleeves which wrap on the arms tightly. The Dai Nationality is good at singing and dancing. The most popular dances are Peacock Dance, Lusheng dance, Sanxian Dance, Lion dance and drum dance. Peacock Dance is the best loved dance of the Dai Nationality. It’s a very graceful and elegant dance, formed by imitating the dance of the peacocks, marked by the undulations of the waist and the arms. The well-known traditional festival Dai Ethnic minority is Water-Splashing Festival. It lasts for three days from April 13 to 15. Besides water- splashing event it also consists of some other events such as Dragon boat races, firing of indigenous missiles, flying Kongming Lamps, etc.

Unique Buddhist Culture

The Dai People and Bulang people have a strong belief in Buddhism. There are 500 temples, 150 pagodas and 5,000 monks with 84,000 Buddhist Scriptures. The Buddhism culture there is really unique for Xishuangbanna was once a remote place far away from central China and close to Thailand and Myanmar.

On arriving at Xishuangbanna, you will find yourself in a green world featured primary forests, rubber trees, banana trees and tea hills. The rich and special ethnic customs attract visitors from all over the world.

II: Best Places to GoManfeilong White Pagoda

The White Pagodas, located on the top of a small hill behind Manfeilong village, are the famous group pagodas in Xishuangbanna. The White Feilong Pagodas was built in 1204 with a history of more than 800 years. It is said the pagodas were designed by three Indian Buddhist monks. The person taking charge of the construction was Hubananpi. All these are recorded in the Pattra Scripture. In the past few years, the pagodas have been restored and become the state historic relic reservation. During the Water-Sprinkling Festival, the Dai people, men and women, old and young, will dance around the pagodas to cerebrate the New Year.

They are also called “Bamboo Shoot Pagodas” because their shapes are like bamboo shoots. The pagodas standing in the rubber trees and bushes consist of pedestal, altar stage, clock bed, alms bowl, lotus, banana bud, precious umbrella, and weather vane. The major pagoda in the middle is 16.29 meters high covered with color ceramic tile on the surface; and eight minor ones around are 9.1 meters in height in eight directions. The eight bottle gourd-shaped minor pagodas with plum blossom-shaped pedestal are marked with red, yellow, purple and white horizontal strokes. In each of the minor pagodas there is a niche for a statue of the Buddha; and in the niche there is a statue of the Buddha.

In addition, on the niche for a statue of the Buddha is the clay sculptures of phoenixes while at the door are two clay sculptures of dragons. The White Feilong Pagodas, which are the Dai minority art of architecture, are the Hinayana structure, although Han nationality architectural style had been melted into.

Wild Elephant Valley

Xishuangbanna Wild Elephant & Nature Reserve lies at the crossroads between the eastern and western zones of the Mengyang Tourism Area, at 747 1055 meters above sea level. The reserve is made up of low hills and small hillocks, with wide valley bottoms rich in waterholes that contain enough salt to meet the biological needs of the wild Asian elephant. The wild elephant groups that roam about in the protection zone between Mengla and Mengyu are designated as National Elephants, while those that roam about inside the Mengla protection zone are designated as International Elephants, as the latter often come and go across the China-Laos border.

The Xishuangbanna Wild Elephant & Nature Reserve, with its dense forest and its rich variety of animals and birds, many of which are rarely seen outside a zoo, is one of the few places in the world where wildlife can be viewed in its natural habitat, where it is us humans who are “caged in”, as it were, as we watch the wild animals and birds go about their daily lives with as little interference as possible from us humans, while still allowing us to witness these fantastic creatures in their natural setting. All of which makes Xishuangbanna Wild Elephant & Nature Reserve something of an open-air museum, but an open-air museum with a difference: these creatures cavort about in their natural habitat, not in a man-made, city zoo habitat.

Xishuangbanna Wild Elephant & Nature Reserve consists of four sites of interest to the visitor:

• An Asian Elephant Breeding Center, established in Xishuangbanna by the Chinese government’s State Forestry Commission, but still under construction;

• An Asian Elephant Ecological Observation Center;

• The natural corridor, or ravine, where wild animals roam freely (and where the visitor may observe these animals via a cableway over the ravine), including - besides the wild elephants, of course - the bear and the water buffalo, and where there is a Python Pavilion, a Bird Park that is home to a number of rare birds, and a Butterfly Park;

• And lastly, a Jinuo ethnic minority village with a tent camping facility offering campfire parties, and, for those who require a more tranquil stay, mountain huts for rent.

At the Jinuo village the visitor can observe first-hand the unique lifestyle of this special minority group, and, with a bit of luck, one might observe a Jinuo religious ceremony where ritualistic music is played involving the use of very large - and sacred - sun-drums (the Jinuo are animists, i.e., they believe, as do many other ethnic groups around the world, including American Indians, that all things, inanimate as well as animate, possess a spirit, the sun being especially sacred to the Jinuo

Sanchahe Nature Reserve Aerial Walkway

China’s Sanchahe Nature Reserve in Mengla County, Yunnan Province, is located in a tropical rain forest corridor that stretches from China into neighboring Burma and Laos. Sanchahe Nature Reserve is famous for its biodiversity and undisturbed habitats for both animals and plants. To better facilitate the scientific study of these habitats and to provide sustainable access to tourists without unduly interrupting the activity of the animals (interrupting the wild elephants can in fact be life-threatening, so one is advised never to attempt to approach these shy animals) or trampling the flora under foot, a 2½-kilometer-long aerial walkway was constructed with the help of a $300,000 grant from a U.S. wildlife organization.

The aerial walkway was an integral part of the eco-tourism plans of Sanchahe Nature Reserve, as it was felt that providing visitors an open-air museum, as it were, helps to raise awareness of the plight of the tropical rain forest (there are a number of rare tropical plants here which scientists believe may hold the key to the cure of known as well as yet-to-be-known diseases) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, provides income to the local population, thus obviating the need to exploit the rain forest for the purpose of a livelihood, which exploitation could very well result in the irrevocable loss to mankind of potentially beneficial, medicinal plants.

The walkway, or footbridge, is suspended between a series of very straight and very tall (up to 80 meters high) indigenous trees, the Parashorea chinensis (aka “the giant of the rain forest”), by means of steel cables onto which are attached the ropes which support the walkway itself. Below one may be lucky enough to spot any of a number of endangered animal species such as the golden monkey or the wild peacock or if one is very, very lucky a flock of wild elephants, though these tend to be quite shy, as indicated.

For those who wish to overnight in Sanchahe Nature Reserve a tourist villa in the shape of a bird’s nest can be rented for the night. There is also an elephant show at Sanchahe that will delight anyone who enjoys watching these amazingly quick-learning, intelligent animals perform.