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Between a Rock and a Wondrous Place

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Between a Rock and a Wondrous Place EXPLORE SOUTHWEST CHINA Between a Rock and a Wondrous Place The ‘Explore Caravan’ reaches the first day’s pass. The muleteers and horses invariably went on ahead to make the first night’s camp lodding up the rocky trail, Slizewicz. Eccentric by demeanour and Despite being among I pause briefly in the thin inquisitive by nature, he and I are loosely air to catch my breath. Far ‘connected’ by a traveller neither of us the first Western below stretches a deep, can ever meet. Joseph Rock is hardly – explorers to uncover narrow valley, its high and probably never was – a household jagged ridges and peaks name, but in the 1920s and 1930s the southwestern China in Pbathed in dazzling sunshine while dark American botanist-explorer led a series the 1920s, American forests beneath remain cocooned in ice- of expeditions into the far-flung reaches cold shade. All is picture-still and silent. of Yunnan and Sichuan. botanist Joseph Rock On we trudge, climbing more steeply He might simply have remained a is far from being a towards forbidding cliffs through a well-regarded yet relatively obscure and wilderness of loose, lichen-mottled stones unconventional academic but for his set household name. and scree. As so often in the mountains, of China-focused articles published in Today, one explorer the pass is not immediately obvious. A National Geographic between 1924 and knot of precipitous zigzags eventually 1935. Copiously-illustrated features such is attempting herald the fissure-like notch in the barren as Seeking the Mountains of Mystery, The ridge into which, curiously, is wedged Land of the Yellow Lama and Banishing to revitalise his a wooden ‘doorframe’. We step through the Devil of Disease Among the Naxi reputation and into a vista dominated by the snow- gave tantalising glimpses into remote, capped Chenrezig mountain peak. little-known corners of the world’s most Our guide on this six-day hike populous country. Text and photographs through the wilds of China’s Sichuan Rock’s profound attachment to south- by Amar Grover Province is Frenchman Constantin de western China was finally severed 70 years July 2019 • 55 EXPLORE SOUTHWEST CHINA CHINA Sichuan Province LIJIANG ZHONGDIAN (aka SHANGRI-LA) INDIA LIJIANG Yunnan Province HONG KONG MYANMAR VIETNAM South China Sea An elderly man strolls into the LAOS courtyard of Wenfeng Si, an 18th century monastery high in the hills near Lijiang ago as Mao’s Communists looked set to of Lijiang until 1949. For centuries it win China’s protracted civil war. Amid had prospered on the ‘Tea Horse Road’, the mounting chaos and anti-foreign a trade route whose caravans of mules sentiment, he reluctantly fled in 1949 to transported goods – particularly tea – to Kalimpong in India and never returned. nearby Tibet and returned with prized Born in Austria to a modest family in horses. Lijiang and its hinterland was 1884, Rock had emigrated to America essentially the capital of the enigmatic in 1905. Scholarly yet rebellious, as Naxi, an ethnic group whose matriarchal a youth he was obsessed by foreign society stirred Rock’s curiosity. lands, particularly China. After years Eschewing the bright lights of Dayan, of drifting and beset by tuberculosis, Lijiang’s picturesque old town, Rock he ended up in Hawaii, initially as a settled in earthy Yuhu village 20km teacher and then a botanical collector away. Here at the foot of Jade Dragon in its Forestry Division. Here, tramping Snow Mountain, he happily sought about the great outdoors (which seemed Cresting the first day’s pass. One or out herbs and plants on the massif’s to ease his TB), the young botanist soon two muleteers and horses carrying a slopes. Meticulous, and bolstered by picnic lunch always stayed with the made a name for himself despite no walkers in case of injury or fatigue a respectable photographer’s eye, his formal training and became an authority obsession with flora expanded into on the islands’ flora. the region’s Naxi people and culture, Following a successful collecting though he seemed to relish their arcane trip to Thailand, Burma and northeast In the 1920s, the over the fringes of Burma and Assam. ceremonies and rituals rather more than India (for which he’d been tasked by the From the early 1900s, British plant humdrum everyday life. Local accounts US Department of Agriculture to help American botanist collectors and explorers such as George of incredible gorges, rogue monastery- find a cure for leprosy), in 1922 he was Forrest and the indefatigable Frank raiding lamas, sacred mountains and offered a stint collecting more plants led a series of Kingdon-Ward covered a vast area from feudal half-forgotten kingdoms soon and seeds in southwest China. Rock expeditions into the Burma to Sikkim and Assam to Tibet, lured him further afield. seized the opportunity. He was not the blending botany and business with Restaurants, bars and cafés line He could hardly have chosen a first Westerner to penetrate the wider far-flung reaches of spying and surveying. many of the canals and streams more exotic place. A global hotspot of region. With an eye on its Indo-Chinese Rock was distinguished by his flowing through Dayan, Lijiang’s biodiversity, Yunnan still boasts an array interests, a succession of 19th century Yunnan and Sichuan peculiar thoroughness and dedication. restored old quarter. The town of what China now calls (and officially is one of China’s most popular French military expeditions almost Once established in Yunnan, he spent destinations for domestic tourists recognises) ‘minority nationalities’ – mirrored British counterparts fretting much of his time living near the town ethnic groups such as the Naxi with 56 • Geographical July 2019 • 57 EXPLORE SOUTHWEST CHINA Monks chat beside a lake in front of Sumtseling Monastery on the edge Shangri-la. This Tibetan Buddhist monastery is the largest in Yunnan Province Camping beside streams in seemingly forgotten valleys, the caravan almost touched the ‘old China’ of Rock’s expeditions distinct origins and cultures. It was Local authorities The remoteness of Lugu Lake on the partly these factors that coaxed my border with Sichuan is now relieved by a first visit to Lijiang and Rock’s obscure new road and even an airport. A local infant and grandmother harnessed the fictional come to see off the caravan world in autumn of 1989: a time when Tourism here has been cannily most locals still rode bicycles, wore mountain utopia of marketed. About 160km north, the town plain Mao-style garments, and the few of ‘Shangri-la’ is a gateway to the vast regional hotels accepting foreigners Hilton’s Lost Horizon Tibetan Plateau, sacred Mt Meili and the often used ‘Number 1’ or ‘Number 2’ to claiming this was the stupendous gorges of the upper Yangtze, prefix and distinguish their names. Mekong and Salween ‒ the Three Having lapsed into a tranquil, almost ‘real’ Shangri-la Parallel Rivers National Park. Until 2001 forgotten, backwater by the 1980s, Shangri-la was known as Zhongdian today Lijiang is among the country’s (or Gyalthang to its mainly Tibetan top destinations for domestic tourists. populace) and famed for its Buddhist Meticulously restored after a potent 1996 monastery, Yunnan’s largest. Then, earthquake, Dayan – its historic old town from a fabled two-day backpackers’ trek aiming to both stem serious logging of wooden houses, lantern-lit courtyards into a more formal attraction boasting and promote tourism, local authorities and charcoal-grey tiled roofs – is veined dramatic viewing platforms, stepped harnessed the fictional mountain utopia with water channels and cobbled lanes. walkways and a clumsy tiger statue. of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon claiming Dotted with guesthouses and lined with Rock’s former home in still-earthy this was the ‘real’ Shangri-la. ‘boutiques’, its humped bridges and open Yuhu is now a modest museum with ‘Some say Hilton’s idea of Shangri-la squares lend a faintly idyllic, almost displays of his evocative black-and-white was possibly inspired by Rock’s articles,’ Disney-esque veneer marred by the photography, dental equipment, cases explains de Slizewicz one evening as we sheer number of Instagram-eyed visitors and even his rickety bed frame. Once- sip pre-dinner rum before a crackling brandishing selfie sticks. pristine Jade Dragon Snow Mountain fire. ‘It was Rock, too, who helped get It doesn’t stop there. Nearby Tiger has several oft-lamented cable cars me here.’ By ‘here’ he means his home Leaping Gorge, where the youthful whisking tourists ‒ mainly from China’s in a small village tucked away in a valley As in Rock’s day, the muleteers are key to the journey’s viability, Yangtze River slashes a spectacular 15km eastern seaboard ‒ up to the craggy about an hour’s drive from Shangri-la. let alone its relative comfort canyon between high peaks, has evolved snowline and so-called yak meadows. An inveterate Sino-phile, especially 58 • Geographical July 2019 • 59 A viewing platform in the upper Yangtze River’s Tiger Leaping Gorge. Its name derives from a story of a local hunter who, when chasing a tiger, reputedly saw it leap across the gorge’s narrowest point Milking a dzo; village only way to honour these landscapes,’ shepherds in southwestern enthuses de Slizewicz. Sichuan Province often graze their flocks from late spring to Once a year he organises a longer, autumn in remote valleys rarely bolder ‘Explore Caravan’ where the visited by outsiders walking is harder, the passes higher and the commitment heftier. It’s on one such journey that I find myself beside the fire with de Slizewicz, half a dozen guests, ten muleteers and 29 horses carrying one-and-a-half tonnes of gear.
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