Nayun Ancient Town attract tourists in Menglian County, Yunnan. [sina.com]
Menglian County
Menglian is a county where mainly live the Va and Dai people. Menglian means a good place found for life in Dai language. Used to be the mansion house of a headmen whose family name is Dao ago 600 years ago, Menglian is fertile and beautiful. Surrounded by parts of Hengduan Mountains, laborious people ploughed this impassable mountains into fields on the mountain.
Photo shows pagodas in Nuyun Ancient Town. [sina.com]
The ancient town is on the west of Nanlei River which passes through Menglian County. So far many people still live in the ancient town where you can see the history as well as the future. Built beside the mountain, Nayun was a village of Dai ethnic group.
It is also very lovely today. Villagers go to the fair early in the morning, and such fresh mountain products can be bought on the fair such as mushroom and termitomyces albuminosus.
Not far from the Nayun Ancient Town, Mengwai Village is another attraction. It is a resort for headmen to avoid summer heat. "The temperature here is about 5 centigrade lower than that in the downtown," said a local. The seventh headman Dao Paiyue found this place in his exile by accident about 600 years ago. Then he named it Mengwai, indicating a place easy for existence. Since then, Dao had spent his summer days here. A clear brook flowers in the front of every hose in Mengwai that is located deep in the forests.
Cuisine: the food here is always delicate. The flavor is spicy and sour oriented. The fresh lemon is usually used for seasoning.
The inner layout of a headman's house. [sina.com]
The mansion house of the former headman. [sina.com]
A village of Va people. [sina.com]
Ximeng County
Over 200 kilometers from Pu'er City on the south, Ximeng County is a home for Va people who have dark complexion, straight nose, big eyes and glossy black hairs. They shows a kind of the beauty of the wild. The newly-built Ximeng County lies in the Washan Valley. "The skull of oxe", symbol of Va people are decorated on roofs or eaves.
The spiritual land of Va people is in the middle of the downtown. "Longmoye" Forest is a jungle for sacrifice. Thousands of buffalo skulls, thickly dotted, can be seen on the stocky walls on the cliff.
As a a local saying "soup without salt is tasteless, and life without songs is not pleasant", Va people show their spiritual life by singing and dancing. Young men ring the wooden drum and girls flap black hairs when the night approaches, expressing love and respect to life.
Buffalo gazes in a quiet village. [sina.com]
Thousands of buffalo skulls are worships of Va people. [sina.com]
A village of Bulang ethnic groups in Langcang County, on the west of Langcang River, Yunnan province. [sina.com]
Langcang County
Good teas are produced on high mountains embraced by mists. Langcang County, on the west of Langcang River, is encircled by mountains. Tea trees are grown on the misty lands. When people trace back to the Pu'er tea culture of a thousand years, Langcang is a vital place. Maybe it is why many tea enthusiasts tramp over mountains to the remote county in Yunnan to seek for the root of some good tea leaves. There are more than 100,000 mu wild old tea threes on Palinghei Mountain. Therefor, Langcang is also called Natural Museum of Tea Trees. Today, the large-scaled tea tress have been cultivated artificially from the wild growth.
Jingmai Mountain is a model for the artificial cultivation of the big-leaf tea trees in Yunnan among Bulang and Dai people. It is a mountain with the largest cultivation areas and longest history of tea trees growing in China. So far, tea trees that experience many vicissitudes of life are still a wild profusion of vegetation.
Some villages of Bulang people are arranged in the shape of crescent. Doors of all families are designed to the same direction. Nuogan Ancient Village is a well-known village for people's longevity. The oldest people was 125 years old here and the present oldest people is 106 years old in this village. Many people are in their nineties, and aged people are commonly seen picking up tea leaves with a basket on the back.
