Spend a day at a "relative"'s home in the mountains

This itinerary is a day in the life of a mountain family.

You can experience: the life of the people in the mountain village, the authentic mountain farm dishes, the village is high up in the canyon, and you can hike to the nearby meadows, virgin forests and pastures, which are relatively traditional and natural.

This place was introduced by Xiao, a local from Yangbi County.

I met Xiao because I was looking for a bird watching teacher to teach us. I first approached Lao Mei, but he said he had settled in Spain and would not be back in the short term, so he recommended Xiao Kebin to me.

I went to Xiao's home to find him. That day, he was preparing to take an Indonesian overseas Chinese bird lover out for bird watching. We only chatted for a short while. Although he agreed to help exchange knowledge, he seemed more interested in our travel route: he is currently working in a mountain village in Yangbi County, Dali. He really wants to develop special tourism for the local villagers and increase some income. Generally, tour groups probably won't go to such mountain villages. He saw our activities and guessed that we might go to these deep villages.

I think a real mountain village trip is worth a try, and with Xiao's opportunity, it's also good to do something. He said that the rhododendrons there are particularly beautiful in March and April, covering the mountains and fields, so I asked him to go to his village to take a look first.

It was really far. I got off the Yangbi Expressway and took a section of the old Burma Road. This section of the road is now a local road away from the main road. It winds through the mountains and passes through villages. It is quiet and has few cars. In addition to the asphalt road, a section of the earliest style of gravel road is also preserved. It allows people to feel the difficulties of the entire country's international support materials being transported from Myanmar to China through this only lifeline during the difficult period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the subsequent expeditionary force entered Burma to fight in order to protect this transportation lifeline.

His stationed village is indeed quite far away. After leaving the Burma Road, it took more than an hour and a half to drive there. The scenery along the way is very open, and the view is also magnificent as it detours through the rolling mountains. On the way back, he received a call. Someone invited him to a year-end pig-killing dinner. He said that it was a family in the west slope of Cangshan Mountain, running a farm stay. He sometimes likes to stay there for a night. It is very comfortable. The most famous rhododendrons on the west slope are nearby. He asked us if we wanted to go to the pig-killing dinner, and I said yes, it’s a good opportunity to go and take a look. Xiao joked, "I don’t just promote our village. As long as it’s good for Yangbi, it’s good."

On the day of the New Year's Pig Dinner, we went with eight or nine people as the leader and four guests. Anna, the hiking guest four years ago, brought her husband, a British man, and an American couple from San Francisco whom she met at the hotel. We went up along the mountain road and arrived at the village halfway up the mountain. The farmyard is on a flat land at a high place, overlooking the valley in front of the door. The yard is spacious and is a three-sided courtyard. There are only two or three families nearby. There are some terraces on the hillside, and the wheat is green in winter. When we arrived, the pigs had already been slaughtered. Relatives, friends and villagers were helping enthusiastically, and the atmosphere was very good.

After a barbecue at noon, we went hiking in the forest high up in the mountains. We crossed the terraced fields and passed two families with farmhouses and sheep. Before entering the primeval forest, we stood on the high meadow and looked back to see the open valley and the rolling mountains.

The forest on the west slope of Cangshan Mountain is very different from the one on the side of Dali Ancient City. You will enter the primeval forest immediately. There are all kinds of trees, such as alpine rhododendrons, huge osmanthus trees, camellia trees, and many other trees that you don’t recognize. The fallen dead trees are huge trunks covered with moss. The stream passes by the road and flows down to the valley.

Camellias are in full bloom in January, and Azaleas are the first to bloom. They begin to bloom gradually in January, with bright red colors, and will be in full bloom until March.

Camellia

The Rhododendron serrata gradually blooms

There is a primeval forest along the way

Finally, we came to a pasture in a valley where cattle and sheep roamed and a small stream flowed through.

Mountain Village Farmhouse Dinner

With this in mind, I knew there would be a great route to travel here.

While strolling on the hillside meadow, looking out at the people living in the valley, the name of this travel route popped into my mind: Spend a day at my relatives’ home in the mountains.

The name comes from the inn by the field where we stayed in Chiang Dao, Thailand. Several guests wrote in their reviews: "Living here is like visiting relatives from other provinces." I thought at the time that this metaphor is really apt. It was probably written by people from Chiang Mai who came to Chiang Dao for vacation.

Some pictures: Photography: Chen Paris, Weed Scene, etc.