We were lucky enough to win a two-week trip organised by Asian Roads, a French travel agency specialising in tours in Asia, to discover & explore the beauty of Yunnan, the region of China bordering Vietnam, Myanmar & Tibet. Looking back on a wonderful August, and sharing our impressions and emotions.
Monday 8 August 2017 – Wonderful news & top-notch responsiveness from Asian Roads
How it all began: an email with a subject line worthy of spam… “Congratulations!!! You have won our Asian Roads Competition”. A paradoxical reaction, somewhere between immense joy and suspicion… Yes, I must admit that after so many investigative TV programmes and media exposés, you end up hesitating when good news comes knocking at your door!
First contact and first check: call them. I got Paul, the founder of Asian Roads, which immediately reassured me. So it was true! He gave me all the necessary details (the dates and format of the trip, originally in October and as part of a group). I explained that I had booked time off at the end of August for a possible trip to Vietnam, but that I didn’t have flights or hotels yet… and that I would therefore be interested in setting off on an adventure with my husband just next door… in Yunnan!
And then, with unfailing availability & flexibility, Paul told me that if we found a flight to Kunming together on dates that suited us, approved an itinerary in the next few days and booked an appointment within 5 days to get our Chinese visas, it was fine with them, just for the two of us! Always available, Paul answered all our questions, put options on flights and very quickly contacted his teams in Yunnan…
Yes, leaving for Yunnan in less than two weeks with the Asian Roads team is possible!
Saturday 19 August 2017 – Letting Asian Roads tell us the story of China
Departure from CDG – connection in Guangzhou after a 12-hour overnight Air France flight (perfect!) – arrival in Kunming at midnight, where we were met by our French-speaking driver-guide for the week, Olivier, who waited for us despite the late hour!
Our “Discover Yunnan Independently – 14 days” tour and itinerary was very full: we visited a new town every day, stayed in a different hotel every night, did two activities a day and spent between 1 and 5 hours on the road each day. Enough to see Yunnan in all its forms, because it’s worth stressing the region’s astonishing diversity, in its landscapes, its ethnic minorities and its atmospheres. We were glad to have the comfort of a car, as the roads are sometimes quite winding, especially in these mountainous areas.
I would have loved to describe every stage, show you all our photos, and convey the smells, the finds and the surprises this trip gave us. But since there were so many of them, which proves the quality of the itinerary Asian Roads offered and the richness of Yunnan, I’ll focus on our 3 favourite moments and our 3 tips for future travellers.
1# A stop in the Red Lands: hurry there, tourism is only just beginning!
Magnificent shades of ochre, walks in fresh air and sunshine as a bonus: we started our trip well with the Red Lands of Lexiaguo. The “Red Soil” hotel really is a little palace for the region. It is a cultural discovery in itself: what a pleasure it was to wander through its traditional architecture, Chinese furniture, ponds, vegetable gardens, ducks and rabbits. Charming, restful and welcoming!
2# With the Yi & Hani ethnic minorities in Yuanyang: where landscapes & farmers truly mean “seeing the country”.
We loved absolutely everything in Yuanyang:
– The “Flower Residence” hotel, with its beautiful view over the rice terraces and its lovely family, with whom we shared a warm evening!
– Lunch with a Yi family, who spoiled us with a generous, surprising and delicious meal (such as bamboo roots!), and their dance show, performed with great care and generosity (nearly 10 folk dances).
– The market with its smells and colours, ideal for immersing yourself in local customs, whether disconcerting (like a stall selling medicine made from scorpion venom), strange (like barbecued fermented tofu) or touching (several generations together on one stall).
– Walks through the rice terraces, discovering the farmers’ work in the middle of the rice harvest: hard labour in a breathtaking setting.
3# Shangri-La: 3,260 metres above sea level, a breath of fresh air and an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism.
It was with our second guide, Tashi, from the Tibetan minority, that we discovered his town, Shangri-La. When Asian Roads offers local guides… they don’t joke about the word “local”. We really enjoyed discovering the temples and Tibetan Buddhism, a religion and culture known and recognised in the West through its symbols (prayer flags, incense, etc.), but what a pleasure to learn more! Like the story of the “Four Friends”: an elephant, a monkey, a rabbit and a pheasant, each on the other’s back, a symbol of lasting, complementary friendship. You often see this mural: when entering a temple, round a street corner, in a living room… We were also lucky enough to taste local yak specialities: butter tea, cheese…
Our 3 humble tips for future explorers or anyone curious about Yunnan:
1# – Be ready for culture shock (in the good sense) and to step out of your comfort zone:
Yunnan, and probably (rural) China in general, is a place that pushes you out of your comfort zone! It is a region of intense richness and diversity that can’t be reduced to a single style or culture (even after Mao), because of the variety of its climates, landscapes and ethnic minorities.
Tourism is mostly Chinese, which is pleasant.
Globalisation has not yet made these regions uniform. Social and cultural practices are very different from ours. Hygiene can seem quite basic: you should know that toilets are often squat toilets. This can be disconcerting, perhaps sometimes uncomfortable, but differences are a way to step outside yourself and be enriched by otherness. For example, during a restaurant meal, Chinese diners put bones on the floor. This could shock us Europeans. In these situations, it’s really good to be with a local French- or English-speaking guide, for example through Asian Roads, to understand these differences and not judge too quickly. There are many anecdotes on this subject. Sometimes it helps to know a few social differences: for example, our guide never said “I don’t know” when we asked a question, and sometimes preferred to give an answer beside the point, perhaps because he didn’t know. In Asian culture, saying “no”, being negative or not knowing is rather frowned upon… because it could mean “losing face”.
2# Having a guide or a translation app, or learning a few words of Chinese, is really useful!
The Chinese people we met generally didn’t speak English at all, even in some hotels and tourist areas (as most tourists there are Chinese).
So when the guide isn’t there, you may run into some misunderstandings. One of our essential phrases (along with the polite ones) was “No chilli, please”, because the dishes are very tasty but also very (really very) spicy, and that’s true of most dishes.
3# Discover this astonishingly diverse region! Whether alone or guided, on your own or through Asian Roads…
this trip is bound to be enriching!
Finally, a big thank you to Asian Roads,
thank you to Paul for organising this magnificent trip,
to Lili, who found solutions for us very quickly,
to Olivier and Tashi for all the visits and kilometres in their company,
and to Alexandre, my husband, for his patience and open-mindedness.
Photo credits: Héloïse & Alexandre MARTIN (August 2017)