Elite Traveler September-October 2016

elite traveler SEPT/OCT 2016 94

from the Ancient Tea Horse Road Museum in Shuhe, near Lijiang, and are now housed in the library. Guests can immerse themselves in local experiences, which include learning how to make traditional yak butter tea, visiting the nearby Dong Zhu Lin monastery where the monks chant for two hours in the courtyard every morning, stopping for pictures at the famous first great bend of the Yangtze River, to retracing the steps of the mule-drivers on a four-mile guided hike through Haba Snow Mountain on an original Tea Horse trail. The dinner at LUX Benzilan, Sichuan-style steamed fish, amazing wine-braised chicken, spicy potato slices, is the best food I taste on the entire trip. The next day I decide to try and get a glimpse of the Meili Snow Mountain further north. It’s the highest in Yunnan and sacred to Tibetan Buddhists. No one has ever managed to reach the summit and now even attempting the climb has been banned. A light dusting of snow becomes almost instantly thicker as the driver takes the winding hairpin bends, climbing higher and higher. The

landscape is magical – although the sheer drop feels perilously close and is pretty hair-raising. Suddenly there’s a traffic jam as several trucks full of pigs get stuck up ahead. I take the opportunity to jump out and take pictures of the snow-covered spruce trees that carpet the mountain. At the 14,000ft mountain pass, where colorful flapping prayer flags are tied like bunting to a chorten (a Buddhist place of worship), I meet a young vacationing couple on an epic 12,400-mile trip by car to Beijing that takes in part of the Tea Horse Road. As I get closer to the village of Feilaisi, usually a good vantage point for Meili, the fog closes in and I only catch a glimpse for a few seconds before it disappears. No matter, we carry on instead to our final destination – the remote village of Adong, population 120, just over 27 miles from Tibet’s border. Until a few years ago, it could only be reached by a bone-jarring dirt track. This region was put on the map by early 20th-century Victorian plant hunters who came to the valleys to collect specimens of rhododendrons and Forrest’s tutsan, but it’s only now that there’s a sense of change slowly happening in the village. In 2013, Moët Hennessy opened a winery as part of China’s burgeoning future as a world-class wine producer. Tibetan farmers were persuaded to switch

from barley and walnuts to vines on the terraces that are flat enough for cultivation, and now wine connoisseurs eagerly await the winery’s first release, the 2013 Aoyun vintage. I have lunch at the home of village doctor Suo Nan, who practises a mix of traditional Tibetan, Chinese and Western medicine. As I tuck into a feast of mushrooms (about 800 of the world’s varieties of mushrooms are found in Yunnan), pork, stir-fried vegetables and omelette with bitter gourd, he tells me about the mountain trail that runs from here to the next village of Diqing. Since the proper road was completed a couple of years ago, Suo Nan says that the trail is hardly used anymore and motorcycles have replaced horses as the most popular form of transport. Before I leave, I decide to walk up the road to the entrance of the trail where, sure enough, after only a few minutes, a motorcycle zooms down. Then, just as I start to turn away a horse appears, being led by its master, passes us and is off along the road. Seeing a horse still using one of these ancient trails feels like a fitting end to such an extraordinary trip in this remote part of the world. THE DETAILS Stay Cox & Kings offers a nine-day/eight-night tailor-made tour to China’s Tea Horse Road from $6,500pp. Price includes direct international flights from London to Chengdu, airport transfers and breakfast daily, with three nights at LUX Tea Horse Road Lijiang, and three nights at LUX Benzilan Hotel. Cox & Kings, +44 20 3642 0861, coxandkings.co.uk

Top: In some places the Tea Road is a mountain trail

A light dusting of snow becomes thicker as the driver takes the winding hairpin bends, climbing higher and higher. The landscape is magical – although the sheer drop feels perilously close and is pretty hair-raising

cut into the rock Above: A friendly wave from a local

Photos: Michael Freeman