Holiday Idea: Tea Horse Road, China
Mary Luissiana takes in grand vistas, ancient culture and pots for tea as she is driven along China's unspoilt Tea Horse Road trade route
Ancient trade routes have always whispered an invitation to me, conjuring the tempting fragrance of danger, the sweat of pack horses, and the delights of exotic spices, silks and tea. And so, the recent arrival of the second Lux Resorts hotel on China's Tea Horse Road allowed me to fulfil a dream by way of Shangri-La.
I started in Lijiang, a major stop on the Tea Horse trade route, where Pu'er tea was brought from the mountains in southern Yunnan and pressed into dried cakes to travel north to Lhasa. Tibetans discovered the tea in the seventh century as they expanded into this part of China, developing a taste for its ability to reduce the oxidative stress experienced at high altitudes. In return, they provided the horses the Chinese needed to protect their northern frontiers, and the name Cha Ma Dao (Tea Horse Road) was born.
Lijiang is the cultural cradle of the Naxi people and brims with cobblestone lanes, stone footbridges and picturesque pagodas. Its not-to-be-missed sights include Black Dragon Pool, from where you can glimpse the soaring, white peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Here, tucked into a corner of the enchanting old town, Lux opened its first Tea Horse Road hotel. Ten rooms overlook a tranquil courtyard, where images of bats, considered lucky by the Naxi, typically decorate the cobblestones.
I set off with a driver and guide under clear-blue mountain skies towards the high Tibetan Plateau. We travel through landscapes that shift from vast peaks with villages caught in their shadowed folds to plains carpeted with pink azaleas. Clusters of stone houses border the roads, their roofs planks of wood held down by loose rocks; yaks graze in the meadows; prayer flags flutter in the breeze. We stop at Tiger Leaping Gorge and see, through the river's spray, the treacherous, narrow route carved into the mountains that the pack mules navigated all those years ago.
We enter Shangri-La, known as Zhongdian until 2001 when the Chinese claimed it as the inspiration for the paradise in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon, and visit the giant, golden prayer wheel, which the locals use to send their requests heavenwards. We stop at Tangdui village, where traditional Tibetan blackware pottery has been made for over 2,000 years, and I buy a tiny teapot, which adds a smoky flavour to the Pu'er tea I now so love.
We reach the new Lux Tea Horse Road hotel in Benzilan after five hours. Lying low on the valley floor, with the great Yangtze river curving round, it is a typical Tibetan house made from clay and earth. Its 30 rooms exude tranquillity, with wooden floors, whitewashed walls, copper basins and a daybed under the window with an earthenware tea set ready. Artefacts from the caravanserai (tea trail traders) that stopped to rest in Benzilan grace the walls. Above, at 3,000 metres, is the seventeenth-century Dong Zhu Lin monastery. Beautifully preserved, its sweeping, gilded roof crowns brightly painted wooden columns. Embracing it are the mountains through which once the muleteers journeyed, as today do I, following in their footsteps.
Ways and Means
Mary Lussiana travelled as a guest of Cox & Kings (020-3642 0861). A seven-night Tea Horse Road tour costs from £2,295 per person, B&B, based on two sharing, including ights and airport transfers, with three nights at Lux Tea Horse Road Lijiang and three nights at Lux Tea Horse Road Benzilan.
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