Yunnan: Dali, Lijiang and the road towards Shangri-La

Yunnan means "south of the clouds", a name that refers to its place beyond the mountains of Sichuan rather than its weather, though the weather is famously kind. It is one of China's most varied provinces. It borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam to the south and Tibet to the north-west, and it climbs from subtropical valleys to high snow peaks. It is also home to more of China's officially recognised ethnic minorities than any other province. For centuries it lay at the far edge of the empire, ruled from the capital in name more often than in practice. Something of that independence still shows.

The classic journey runs north-west from the provincial capital, Kunming, through Dali to Lijiang. From there it continues to the town now called Shangri-La on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, rising more than a kilometre in height along the way.

Dali and the lake

Dali sits on a high plain between Erhai Lake and the long ridge of the Cangshan mountains. For several centuries it was the capital of independent kingdoms, first Nanzhao and then the Kingdom of Dali, until the Mongols under Kublai Khan took it in the thirteenth century. The old town is a grid of grey-tiled streets inside its rebuilt walls, and just outside it stand the Three Pagodas. The tallest dates from the ninth century, and they are the clearest reminder that this was once a capital in its own right.

The Bai people, the largest of the region's minorities, have lived around the lake for a very long time, and their villages are the best of the area. Xizhou, a short way up the shore, has whitewashed courtyard houses built by merchants grown rich on regional trade. Many are painted with decorative panels and arranged on a pattern of three wings and a screen wall that catches the light. It is a good place to slow down after the city.

Shaxi and the tea road

Between Dali and Lijiang, off the main road, is the small market town of Shaxi. For centuries this region was crossed by the trading routes known as the Tea Horse Road, on which caravans carried tea and other goods from Yunnan and Sichuan towards Tibet and brought back horses. Shaxi was one of the market stops, and it still has a market square, an old theatre stage and a gate on its way to the river. In recent decades it has been carefully restored, and it is now one of the best surviving examples of a caravan town in the region. It is smaller and quieter than the famous towns, which is reason enough to go.

Lijiang, and higher still

Lijiang, at about 2,400 metres, is the home of the Naxi people. Their pictographic Dongba script is one of the few such writing systems still in use, mainly by priests. The old town is a tangle of canals, stone bridges and wooden houses beneath Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and it was declared a World Heritage Site in 1997, a year after an earthquake. Its fame has a cost. It is often crowded, and many of its old houses are now shops. Early mornings and the lanes away from the centre still show what it was like, and the mountain is there whenever the clouds allow.

North of Lijiang, the road follows the upper Yangtze, here called the Jinsha, past Tiger Leaping Gorge and up onto the plateau. The town at the end of it was called Zhongdian until 2001, when it was renamed Shangri-La after the hidden valley in James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon. It is a piece of branding, and everyone involved knows it. What it brands is real, though: a Tibetan town at well over three thousand metres, with prayer flags and yaks in the fields, and Songzanlin, a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery, on the hill above. The altitude is worth respecting, and a slow first day pays off.

Which tours take the road

G Adventures' China's Hidden Highlights, Chengdu to Kunming, seven nights, is the most direct way to see the heart of this route: Lijiang, Shaxi, Dali and the village of Xizhou, after a start in the Sichuan capital. It runs in winter and spring.

G Adventures' Signature: Southwest China from Shangri-La to Shanghai, nine nights, starts in Chengdu and the ancient irrigation works at Dujiangyan. It goes up to Shangri-La and Lijiang, then east to the limestone karst of Yangshuo, finishing in Shanghai.

For a first trip to China that ends in Yunnan rather than starting there, G Adventures' Beijing to Kunming: Undiscovered China, thirteen nights, takes in the Great Wall at Mutianyu, Xi'an and Chengdu before heading south-west to Lijiang, Shaxi and Dali.

Spring and autumn are the best times to go. Summer brings the rains, and winter is clear but cold at altitude, especially in Shangri-La. Any season, though, shows how big China is, and how little Yunnan resembles the cities most visitors start with.