7 Days in Lincang

About 90 minutes into Shuangjiang county for Mengku and the Bingdao old-tea village around 1,400 metres, tastings with the growers and the wild-tea snow-mountain forests above 2,200 metres across the valley.

1. lincang bingdao old village

Northeast to the Bangdong bank of the Lancang (Mekong) — Xigui's old gardens above the gorges, and the county's first railway trains, running since the end of 2020.

1. lincang xigui tea village

An honest transfer note — about three hours southwest into Cangyuan county — for the Wa village of Wengding, thatched wooden houses rebuilt after the serious fire of February 2021; walk it as a living village.

1. lincang wengding village

Red-ochre figures and cattle on the Menglai cliffs, commonly estimated at some 3,000 years, and the limestone halls of the Simangli cave named for the Wa origin epic.

1. lincang cangyuan cliff paintings
2. lincang sigangli cave

The Qing-era Guangyun temple, listed for national protection in 1988, then the road west into Gengma county — Mantuan, a Dai village where paper is still sheeted by hand — and the border market town of Mengding; sleep in Gengma.

1. lincang guangyun temple
2. lincang mantuan paper village

The long drive back northeast, breaking at the reservoir stretch behind the Manwan dam — the first big station on the Mekong, generating from the early 1990s — for a lake-side lunch; evening in Lincang.

1. lincang manwan long lake

About two hours northwest to Fengqing, where the black-tea style called Dianhong was first made in 1939; factory and estate tastings, then the HSR connection from Lincang station or the airport flight.

1. lincang fengqing dianhong