The Perilous Passage: Choosing a Route Through Yunnan’s Monsoon Lands
The journey began with an unexpected obstacle in Dali Prefecture – no muleteers or porters could be hired for the route to Kunlong Ferry. During cooler seasons, this stretch posed little concern, with locals estimating seven days to Yunzhou south of the Mekong River, followed by twelve more to reach the Nu River crossing at Kunlong. Beyond lay British-controlled territory, with just four or five days through jungle to reach the garrison town of Lashio, headquarters of the Northern Shan States administration and terminus of the railway to Mandalay.
But the approaching summer monsoon transformed this route into what porters considered a death trap through the Nanding River valley and Nu River jungles. Even triple the usual wages couldn’t tempt them. Forced to reconsider, the traveler settled on an alternative path to Bhamo via Yongchang Prefecture and Tengyue – dangerous in summer, but with only a few critical hours of genuine peril that porters would reluctantly accept.
This well-trodden path had been documented by Western travelers like Baber, Colquhoun, and Dr. Morrison in recent decades, though Southwest China had changed little in thirty years – or indeed since Marco Polo’s time, save for slightly improved roads. The journey commenced on May 25th from Dali’s southern fortress-town of Xiaguan, a surprisingly prosperous trading hub, then westward into mountain valleys.
Ancient Kingdoms and Vanished Customs: The Legacy of Yongchang
Beyond the Mekong lay what Marco Polo called “Zardandan,” with its capital “Vochan” – modern Yongchang, once the Golden Teeth Kingdom where natives adorned their teeth with gold foil. Though this custom had vanished, Yongchang retained another peculiar tradition Polo recorded: “wan mian,” where after childbirth, the husband takes to bed for forty days while the mother resumes household duties. Locals explained this as men sharing women’s childbirth suffering – a dubious rationale for what appeared as an elaborate male baby-shower.
Yongchang’s ethnic mosaic mirrored Yunnan’s complexity, though most spoke Chinese dialects. Polo had noted their tattooing tradition, possibly linking them to Burmese culture. The city walls, recently repaired during Emperor Guangxu’s reign (1892), couldn’t prevent vegetation from undermining their integrity – a metaphor for imperial China’s creeping decay.
The traveler’s expanded caravan now included two elephants alongside mules, reaching Yongchang via villages like Wo Shi Wo (Sleeping Lion’s Den), named for its bat-infested, foul-smelling cave. Local landmarks included the 1888 Fengming Stone Bridge with donor tablets, and temples funded by wealthy merchants along this ancient trade corridor.
Confronting the Nu River’s Dreaded Valley
The journey’s most feared segment approached – the Nu River valley, where travelers only ventured fortified by quinine. Villages like Fang Ma Chang (Horse Grazing Ground), rebuilt after wartime destruction, led to impoverished Da Ban Jing village near a hillside temple where deities gazed upon a limited world.
Descending from 4,500 to 2,400 feet, the party reached the Nu River suspension bridge. Locals believed the valley filled each dawn with deadly colored vapors – red most lethal, yellow and blue less so. Legends told of river monsters like submerged “blankets” that dragged boats under. Marco Polo, though never visiting, described the region as impassable with lethal summer airs.
The traveler found these fears exaggerated – altitude change likely caused any discomfort. The Times’ correspondent Dr. Morrison in Beijing dismissed the legends, as did our explorer after experiencing only spectacular natural phenomena: rainbows forming bridge-like across the river, perhaps inspiring the “colored vapors” tales.
Tengyue: Frontier Town and Railway Dreams
Reaching the Tengyue plain revealed prosperous villages alongside hybrid Chinese-Western buildings – the Imperial Maritime Customs and Union Jack-flying British Consulate. Consul Ottewell’s hospitality provided respite after the grueling journey.
Tengyue had been proposed as terminus for a British railway from Bhamo, potentially boosting China-Burma trade. But Customs officials noted marginal existing trade, questioning the railway’s economic impact without extension to Dali and beyond. The traveler envisioned a network connecting to French Indochina, Sichuan, even Tibet – though costs made Britain’s limited Bhamo-Tengyue plan understandable, if inadequate to challenge French dominance in Tonkin.
Border Crossings and Colonial Re-Entry
After dismissing his Yunnan porters and retainer from Dartsendo (Kangding), the traveler hired fresh transport for the final push to Bhamo. June’s heavy rains transformed streams into impassable torrents – at one crossing, porters stripped naked to carry loads overhead, losing one bundle that ruined most photographic plates. The bitter irony: surviving countless dangers only to fail at a minor stream.
Emerging onto a well-made road (British-engineered but Chinese-funded) signaled approaching civilization. The unmarked border crossing at Gu Li Jie – no flags, guards or fanfare – contrasted sharply with the Bengal-style bungalows soon appearing, announcing British territory. At the first rest house, familiar Western comforts (tablecloths, mosquito nets, baths) felt surreal after months in China’s hinterlands.
The five-month, six-day journey from China’s Shandong peninsula to Burma had crossed seven provinces, countless mountain ranges, and major rivers including the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, and Salween. Remarkably, the traveler maintained health eating the same food as his porters, with only one cold near Tengyue.
Civilized Barbarian: An Awkward Arrival in Bhamo
The final approach to Bhamo became an exercise in embarrassment – the traveler’s original Western clothes long gone, Tibetan leather gear unsuitable for tropics given away in Dali, leaving only patched Chinese peasant garb and straw sandals. His shaggy Yunnan pony with its high-pommeled Tibetan saddle completed the disreputable picture.
Hoping to sneak into town at dawn for emergency outfitting, his plans were foiled by encountering a British mountain artillery unit whose officer’s disapproving stare prompted a hasty ditch-side concealment. Even after directions from a European rider, his first stop was “Kohn’s” store for whatever passable Western clothing was available – a humbling re-entry into colonial society after his epic trans-frontier journey.
This extraordinary account reveals not just the physical challenges of pre-modern travel in Southwest China, but the cultural and psychological transitions between worlds – from Qing China’s fading frontier regions to British Burma’s colonial order, with their competing visions for the region’s future through trade networks and transportation infrastructure that would soon transform the lands between the Mekong and Salween rivers.