Yunnan, China

April 19-29, 2018

"We're going to Yunnan!" Steven told me one day. "Huh?" I replied in surprise. Steven's family takes an annual family vacation each year and decided on the province of Yunnan, China this year as the destination! I had never heard of it, but apparently it's larger than the entire country of Germany in terms of geography and one of the most beautiful places in all of China. Excitement bubbled as we started looking up photos and checking out the itinerary from the tour group we booked through. In the past when we visited Puerto Rico, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Munich, and Salzburg as a family, we always had self guided excursions. This time, we booked through a tour group for the 10 days together and it costs only around $300/person all inclusive!! Amazing.

Yunnan is full of minority Chinese groups, each with their own traditions, vernacular, and well known foods. The food is spicy and sour, but not salty so it's more healthy. They say Yunnan is like Texas. Their history is separate from China's like Texas and how it likes to separate from the US. Our tour guide spoke entirely in Chinese and only gave tours on the side. He's actually a college history professor, and showered us with a myriad of Chinese history upon us (approximately 1/3 or which I understood). 

This trip originated from Steven's family wanting to check out their "motherland" as his grandparents originally migrated to Taiwan from China's Anhui and Szechuan regions. Even though Yunnan is way more touristy than those areas, it felt extremely rural to us and we have a ton of fun stories from the trip as a result ;) (most of which involve carrying around our own rolls of toilet paper and squatting to pee in the ground). 

We spent many hours a day on our tour bus, trekking across the vast lands of Yunnan. We started in Kunming and saw the most beautiful garden, similar to Central Park in New York!

Next, we visited the ancient Shanxi Village. Horse ride vendors beckoned as we strolled through the cobblestone streets. Giant furry dogs took naps on the side of the road and we took out the drone for a spin when we visited the old bridge!

One of the beautiful things about Yunnan is you never sweat. It's always between 18-35 degrees Celsius. Our entertaining tour guide told us stories from his hometown: Nanjing, China. In Nanjing, when the bus is full, the bus driver tells you that since you've already paid, you can chase the bus for two minutes as it drives to the next stop. The bus driver purposefully drives very quickly and brakes suddenly so everyone in the bus lurches forward and there is magically room for you in the back at the next stop. Too funny.

As a bonus stop on our tour, we added in the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a beautiful scenic canyon with rushing waters. We climbed many steps to get down and up, but it was so worth the amazing views!

My hubby, the model. :)

Shangri-la was so magical! They drink butter tea there made of yak butter, tea leaves, water, and salt. I would not recommend in terms of taste...and it's likely not pasteurized. Very interesting experience though! We first visited this massive open cow field with mountains of dung every mile. It's where a lot of yoga retreats and monk meditations happen because it's literally the middle of nowhere. The city itself was beautiful and at a super high altitude. The tour guide took us to a tourist shop where we could buy oxygen tanks for those who had high altitude sickness. Despite being pregnant, I managed to avoid it. However, Steven and his mom fell ill. 

We visited the region of Lijiang inhabited by the Naxi minority next. There are "3 treasures" there: the Old Town, their seaweed, and snow mountains. They call the women "Pang zhi mei" or "strong women" as a sign of respect to the women instead of being girly. You can only see snow on Lijiang Mountain one month a year. It signifies good luck so people flock to buy lottery tickets in hopes of winning. Their old town was a cute little village!

In Dali, they have silver and jade museums available for purchase. The silver water bottles there purify the water as it sits in there. The Bai people live here. There is also another minority tribe we learned about where it's a matriarchal female society. Men stay at home while women choose who they marry and work. Say what?! 

We rode a cable car up to Lakeside Xishan, which was beautiful. They had a duck show where they feed the local geese fish and it was quite majestic. I wish we had the opportunity to fly the drone, but there were way too many people sadly! The views were stunning though :) We did a fun spring dance with the minority group there!

One of the standout experiences was a dance performance called Dynamic Yunnan. It's an amazing performance with shadow dancing, incorporating the language, culture and traditions of the 25 ethnic groups that make up Yunnan. Absolutely phenomenal! It's so captivating you forget to clap after each act. We also visited various specialty shops for silk, jade, silver, and tea. 

Pu'er tea is the tea specially grown in Yunnan. The best varieties of the leaves actually grow on trees. It's like wine and tastes even better as it ages. It tastes bitter upon sipping in your mouth, but turns the taste of water sweet when you drink it immediately afterwards. Super interesting!

All in all, such an unforgettable cultural experience. We ended up our week in China with a quick weekend in Taiwan, which truly felt like home. You really can't beat Taiwanese street food, the well developed and clean city of Taipei, and all of the ah-mazing eats. Loved getting to treasure an entire week with Steven's family and reunite. Everyone is so excited to meet baby Chen in 2018, and I know our upcoming family trips will never be quite the same!

Want to check out our past travels? Visit our Travel blog page here!