Author: Greta

putting the fun in funghi – a gourmet tour of yunnan

Lofty mountains and flowing waters, a wildflower for your hair and a mushroom for your umbrella. Yunnan in summer is wet with dew and rain, but it is the perfect playground to discover all the wonderful things coming to life in fields and mountainsides! Come along with China Tea Leaves on this unique Yunnan tour, Summer of Mushrooms edition!

This five day tour celebrates the mighty mushroom, and all the many varieties which can be found in Yunnan province. Yunnan is wonderfully biodiverse, with microclimates, forests, and mountains harboring thousands of flora and fauna not found anywhere else on earth, including many, many varieties of mushrooms. Actually, epicureans from around the world source their funghi from Yunnan, including as much as 2,000 tons of matsutake which make their way to Japan every year (in China called 松茸 song rong).

 

We will fly from Shenzhen direct to Lijiang (丽江 elev. 7900ft/2400m). There we will be picked up by private shuttle to head to Shaxi (沙溪 elev. 6890ft/2100m), a pristine valley with a well preserved Bai minority village and world class historical sites. Our hotel for two nights will be the Old Theatre Inn, located right inside a temple/theatre that served entertainment for the gods of the Bai people. Here we will be treated to a tour by a local guide to pick wild mushrooms, and for lunch we will cook a few dishes based on local produce and our own foraged mushrooms. We can also visit the famous Sideng market in the village, where your eyes can savor a rainbow of edibles, teas, herbs, as well as the diverse minorities of the region.

 

From Shaxi we will head back to Shuhe (束河 elev. 8000ft/2440m) near Lijiang, an old town located on the ancient Tea Horse Road. We will continue to eat our way through Yunnan, savoring mushroom hot pot with the summer’s bounty, fresh fruit, local walnuts and more. We can shop the markets of Shuhe and Lijiang for matsutake and black truffles to bring to friends and family back home. We’ll take a short hike on the Tea Horse Road itself, peeking in on wildflowers and mushrooms growing along our path. At last, mushrooming complete, we can lay back and relax in our courtyard home at the Lazy Tiger Inn, sipping tea and letting the mesmerizing guqin take us on a mind-bending journey.

 

Wednesday, August 30: Morning flight Shenzhen to Lijiang, shuttle to Shaxi
Thursday, August 31: Local mushroom tour in Shaxi
Friday, September 1: Visit Sideng market in Shaxi, shuttle to Shuhe
Saturday, September 2: Tea Horse road hike in Shuhe, visit market in Lijiang (or Shuhe as weather alternate)
Sunday, September 3: Afternoon flight Lijiang to Shenzhen

Price: 6988 per person (double occupancy)

Plus – If you book 2 or more people together, receive 100RMB off per person in your group!
For example – book 2 together, 200RMB off for you and your friend. Book 4 together, 400RMB off for each person! Maximum 600RMB off the original price.

(price above if booked by August 16. after August 16 dependent on current airfare and other last minute fees)

Price includes: Round trip airfare from Shenzhen, local ground transportation in Yunnan, four nights (double occupancy) at quality courtyard hotels, meals, local guide fee, entrance tickets, travel insurance, and full service guide by Greta of China Tea Leaves.

Payment: by cash, payment to be made by August 16

Minimum 6 people, maximum 8

Contact Greta on WeChat (lilies-of-the-valley) or by email (chinatealeaves@yahoo.com) to book your spot.

 

Note: On this trip we are only picking and eating safe mushrooms, nothing hallucinogenic or dangerous. Puns are for literary purposes only. 🙂 Please pay attention to our local guide in Shaxi, who will advise us which mushrooms are safe to pick and consume.

Note: Much of this trip is at high elevation – 6890ft/2100m and higher. Travelers may feel effects of the elevation, but can usually adjust to normal activity level within 1-2 days. This itinerary does not include intensive hiking, but please notify us of any health conditions when booking. China Tea Leaves is not responsible for any injuries or accidents sustained during the trip.

 

 

june tour – summer jaunt to zhaoqing


Come with China Tea Leaves on a weekend jaunt from Shenzhen to nearby Zhaoqing!

Zhaoqing (肇庆) is located in Guangdong province, to the west of the Pearl River Delta, rich in both history and green mountains, but a bit off the tourist track.

We will depart by shuttle from Shekou in Shenzhen, on Friday June 16 in the late afternoon. In Zhaoqing we’ll stay two nights in a sweet and stylish hotel overlooking one of the city’s most famous sights, the Seven Stars Crag park (七星岩). With its classic landscape of rocky mountains and peaceful lakes, you’ll see why Zhaoqing is called a “little Guilin.” (Hotel: Lian’an Seaview Hotel)

On Saturday June 17, we’ll visit Dinghu Mountain (鼎湖山), one of the four most important mountains in Guangdong province. This biodiverse park is full of greenery and tropical flowers, a majestic waterfall, and a quiet lake.

Zhaoqing also is full of history, including an intact city wall dating back to the Song dynasty.

On Sunday, we will head back on our shuttle for an afternoon arrival in Shenzhen.

Enjoy a weekend away from the city for reinvigorating views in Zhaoqing with China Tea Leaves.

Depart: Friday June 16, 4:00pm
Return: Sunday June 18, 3:30pm

Adult price: 2488RMB (double occupancy)
Kids over 1.2m: 1080RMB
Kids under 1.2m: ask for price (please inform me if seat on shuttle or extra bed required)

Includes: round trip shuttle from Shenzhen, 2 nights hotel (double occupancy), all meals Fri dinner – Sun lunch, entrance tickets, and guided tour by Greta.

Minimum: 8 people, Maximum, 12.

Contact Greta by WeChat (lilies-of-the-valley) or by email (bilekgreta@gmail.com).
Payment in cash please, paid in full by June 13.

yunnan paradise – china tea leaves tour of lijiang and shangri-la

China Tea Leaves First Guided Tour – Yunnan 9-Days 

Shuhe, Baisha, Lugu Lake, Shangri-La and Tiger Leaping Gorge

April 22-30, 2017

Personal Tour with Greta Bilek

Are you dreaming of a land of blue skies, colorful clouds, people living a quiet traditional life? A place where you can stretch your legs, climb green mountains, wade amongst wildflowers, and discover temples, new friends and always a bit of adventure? Sounds like a fairy tale, some kind of Shangri-La, you say?

You would be right. And you can find your own paradise in the northwest corner of Yunnan province.

Come with Greta Bilek, author of China Tea Leaves travel guides and explorer of China, on your dream trip to Yunnan province.

Yunnan province is located in southwestern China, tucked between Tibet, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces, Myanmar, and Vietnam, and is one of the most diverse provinces in China, with dozens of ethnic minorities; flowers, mushrooms and other wildlife; and dramatic landscapes with the weather of eternal spring.

I’m Greta Bilek, and I’ve lived in Shenzhen for nearly five years. During my time here, I’ve often traveled to Yunnan province, among other places, writing and discovering the hidden treasures of China. I’ll be your personal guide, taking you to my favorite places and sharing stories that open up the symbols, history and culture we will encounter. This is a small group tour (6-10 people), so we can relax into the pace of Yunnan life and discover places off the beaten track.

We’ll be visiting Shuhe and Baisha, outside of Lijiang; Lugu Lake; Shangri-La; and the Tiger Leaping Gorge.

We will fly into Lijiang (丽江 elev. 7900ft/2400m), a major stop on the ancient Tea Horse Road in western China. Our home base will be the old town of Shuhe, a village on the old Tea Horse Road, which connected Tibet to southern Yunnan and beyond, for centuries of trade of horses (from Tibet) and tea (from southern Yunnan).

Once we check into our courtyard hotel in Shuhe (束河 elev. 8000ft/2440m), all the knots of your hectic modern life will start to melt away, as we sip tea, listen to the ancient guqin played by Liping, and fall into a slow rhythm of life.

We’ll visit Baisha (白沙 elev. 8170ft/2490m), the capital of the region’s former Naxi kingdom, and today a small village that still holds its authentic, traditional feeling. We can chat with locals, taste local street food, and hunt antiques and fabrics in the shops of the old town.

Then we’ll hit the road to head to Lugu Lake (泸沽湖 elev. 9095ft/2770m), a clear lake in the mountains on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. This is the home of the Mosuo people, also known as the “kingdom of women” due to their specific matrilineal customs still practiced today. The clear blue waters dancing under your wooden boat and the Tibetan religion of the area will also leave their impression on you.

After going back through Baisha, we will head north towards to Shangri-La (香格里拉 elev. 10,370ft/3160m), the center of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan province. You will really feel like we’re in Tibetan country, even though we won’t have crossed the border. Ladies in traditional pink headwear do their shopping and older folks grasp their prayer beads throughout the streets. We will visit a lively market, the old town of Dukezong, the largest prayer wheel in the world, and the Songzanlin monastery, which is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan.

From Shangri-La, we will head back south to start our two-day hike of the Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡 elev. 6230-8690-6890ft/1900-2650-2100m). This is one of the most renowned hikes in the world, a deep gorge along the Jinsha River, which becomes the Yangtze River as it flows through Sichuan province. Every view is breathtaking, gazing up at snow mountains so close you think you could reach out and touch them.

After one tough day of hiking, we will stay overnight in a guesthouse on the trail, and wake up to silent mountains looking on outside our window. We will continue hiking through farming enclaves, waterfalls and vistas to reach our shuttle back to Lijiang.

Our final night will be spent in Shuhe, before we fly back from Lijiang to Shenzhen.

After days dreaming in the heights amongst a rainbow of wildflowers and prayer flags, you will return to Shenzhen with a vision of paradise in your mind’s eye and a burning desire to come back to Yunnan province.

Day 1: Evening flight Shenzhen – Lijiang, stay Shuhe

Day 2: Visit Shuhe and Baisha, stay Shuhe

Day 3: Shuhe to Lugu Lake, stay Lugu Lake

Day 4: Lugu Lake visit, Lugu Lake to Baisha, stay Baisha

Day 5: Baisha to Shangri-La, Old Town visit, stay Shangri-La

Day 6: Visit Songzanlin Monastery, stay Shangri-La

Day 7: Shangri-La to Tiger Leaping Gorge, hike, stay TLG

Day 8: Finish hike TLG, return to stay in Shuhe

Day 9: Afternoon flight Lijiang – Shenzhen

All-Inclusive: Round trip Airfare (direct flight on Shenzhen Airlines), Ground Transportation, Hotels 8 nights (double occupancy), Entrance Tickets, Meals

7128RMB

(Note: Much of this trip is at high elevation – 7900ft/2400m and higher. Travelers will feel the effects of the elevation, but can usually adjust to normal activity level within 1-2 days. The Tiger Leaping Gorge hike has some steep inclines and is at high elevation. Hiking at this elevation is tough and incurs a real risk of altitude sickness. There are donkeys available on the trail for those who feel uncomfortable, for an additional fee. But this hike is best suited for those in good physical shape. The trail is in good condition, and no special prior hiking experience is necessary.)

nation of travelers


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China’s national holiday (国庆节 guo qing jie) is coming up, with seven days off from work from October 1st to 7th. The first marks the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and more and more every year travel reigns as the national pasttime for this holiday. The internet is filled with nightmare stories and images of stone bridges and great walls overflowing with humanity. So what to do if you’re in Asia while 1.3 billion people are on holiday?

Here are some tips and ideas.

  1. Seek out secondary cities, and even in major tourist cities, escape the crowds by going to lesser known sites.

Most Chinese tourists travel in large tour groups, and for the most part visit locales designed to hold busloads of people. So, this is a case where the 80/20 rule can be applied – often 80 percent of the people are just in 20 percent of any given area in China. So, when you’re in Hangzhou, and find the east bank of West Lake swimming with people, get yourself to the west banks with its private gardens, a nearby mountain, or a quiet tea village.

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east side of Hangzhou’s West Lake
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garden of the east side of Hangzhou’s West Lake

2. Relax and have a sense of humor.

The crowds may be maddening, but everyone’s out to have fun. Relax, find humor in the craziness, chat with other tourists. Chinese people, especially on vacation and especially with foreigners, are incredibly friendly and charming.

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having fun on Qingming Festival

3. Don’t go to Beijing.

For your sanity’s sake, just don’t go to Beijing during the October National Holiday.

4. Consider traveling abroad, but remember that Chinese international travel is skyrocketing.

It seems like everyone I know this year is going to Japan during this National Holiday. Other spots across Asia are becoming popular with Chinese tourists, including South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore.

5. Stay home.

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Donghu park in Shenzhen

Finally, you may decide to simply stay home. Shenzhen and other modern cities will clear out for seven days, so take these days to enjoy the city without traffic. Go to a park or museum you’ve never been to.

China Tea Leaves has spent two national days abroad, and one at home in Shenzhen. This year, we’ll be venturing to the farthest reach of Yunnan province. We hope to find quiet and beauty, and hope you can too, wherever your travels take you.

 

tomorrowland of shanghai

intro

Shanghai, the new China. There has never been such a place.

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Disney has announced the new lands to be featured at the upcoming Shanghai Disneyland. Mainland China’s first Disneyland theme park is set to open in Spring 2016.

But there’s no reason to wait until next year to visit Shanghai. In fact, many of these new lands, exclusive to the new Chinese park, sound remarkably like places you can already find in China’s largest city.

Adventure Isle

See the fossils of real life dinosaurs at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, recently reopened next to the Jing’an Sculpture Park. Kids can roam and climb the outdoor sculptures for an urban adventure.

Gardens of Imagination

yuyuan

Tucked in one of the oldest parts of the city, there is a garden that a loving son built for his aging father. He named it the Garden of Contentment. Sounds like a Disney story, no? Actually this is the Yuyuan (豫园) Garden in Old Shanghai. Get lost in tangled walls topped with the head and tail of a dragon, and sip tea where the scholars of dynasties past would recite poetry.

Mickey Avenue

old shopping

A Main Street for shopping, this could describe nearly every street in Shanghai. Nanjing Road, the narrow streets of Old Shanghai Bazaar, and more are filled with shops for picking up a souvenir of sparkling Shanghai.

Tomorrowland

nanjing future

Look up anywhere in Shanghai and you’d think you’re looking at the future. Skyscrapers rise out of the skyline like something out of the Jetsons, including one which is even named Tomorrow Square. You even arrive from the airport traveling hundreds of miles per hour on a cushion of air on a Maglev train.

Treasure Cove

old shanghai

Did you know that the oldest part of Shanghai, now called Old Shanghai, was originally a city with a fortified wall built to fend off Japanese pirates? Captain Jack Sparrow wasn’t the first pirate in these parts. Then, visit the Bund and take a night cruise on a pirate ship to see Shanghai’s duelling electrical parade on the two sides of the Huangpu River.

Fantasyland

pudong
second supertall to the right and straight on ’til morning

Perhaps the most fantastical part of extraordinary Shanghai is the new trade zone of Pudong. If you were to build a wonderland of free trade and aggressive development, it would look like Pudong. This enchanted place contains the very real wonders of the Oriental Pearl Tower in glimmering pink, the golden pagoda-like Jinmao tower, and China’s current tallest building, the Shanghai Tower.

See what wonders Shanghai and China already have to offer.

 

 

 

two amazing pools in hong kong and macau

Southern China in the summer is “blessed” with hot, humid weather, a non-stop sauna for us here in Shenzhen and the surrounding Pearl River Delta. Luckily, nearby Hong Kong and Macau are also blessed with stunning scenery and some amazing hotels for a quick summer getaway.

Here are two fantastic pools for slowing the pace and plunging into cooler temps when traveling through China’s Special Administrative Regions.

The Island Shangri-La is one of the top hotels in Hong Kong, and one of the Asian luxury hotel chain’s flagship properties. One of two in Hong Kong, its Island location is set in the middle of Hong Kong Island’s towering urban jungle. Its outdoor pool has surreal views of IM Pei’s Bank of China tower and the rest of Admiralty.

 

A ferry trip across the Pearl River Delta, you can find yourself an ocean or two away, in the port of Macau with its continental tastes and slower pace. The Sofitel sits in the old town of Macau, away from the glitz of the casinos down yellow stucco streets accented with azulejo tiles and streaming fountains. Two outdoor pools are decorated in French fashion, one especially reserved for the suites of the mansion wing.

 

Get a splash of luxury in one of these pools as part of your summer travel in China.

an evening along erhai lake

On one of our last evenings in Yunnan, I took a short walk at dusk around the Xiangyangxi Village (向阳溪村) where we were staying on the Erhai Lake of Dali prefecture. As Yunnan is located relatively well west in the single Beijing Standard Time zone of China, the sun wouldn’t set until well past eight o’clock. This made for very leisurely dinners around the communal table of the guest houses we stayed in, allowing time to chat with the owners and our traveling companions as the blue skies tinged violet, then rose, and then were taken over in a dazzling sunset filling the heavens with a multitude of colors.

erhai

The name of Erhai Lake (洱海) describes it as a sea shaped like an ear (耳), and its north-south elongation makes it look like a Daoist immortal’s drooping earlobes from above. Xiangyangxi Village lies towards the northern tip of the lake, closer to the old Bai market town of Xizhou than to Dali Old Town. Dali prefecture includes the entire region of the lake, with more than a dozen villages circling the famed waters of Erhai.

During the day the lake ring road buzzes with vespas rented by holidaying twenty-somethings. But in the evening, the village streets turn serene again—a few kids goofing off with musical instruments, Bai women in petunia pink kerchiefs chatting on a doorstep, a man finishes his cigarette before returning home. The east gate of Bai homes is traditionally the grandest, decorated with beautiful stenciling and fantastically intricate stone carvings. I admired many of these in the dimming light—blue and ochre paintings against white stucco and grey stone. A temple protruded from the street out into the rice paddies. Since its gates were already locked, I could only admire the wind diverting wall, the 屏风 (pingfeng), an element in feng shui design, across from the main entrance. It was covered in symbols and mythical creatures, some of which I recognized and some of which may only be understood by the Bai people of this very village. Back in the guest house, I watched the last light of the sunset fade to stars behind a tile roof decoration, the clay cat of the Bai house, which absorbs bad energy. A few hours left in Yunnan, to spend between the stars and the quiet lapping of the ink dark lake.

monument valley

red earth

Midway between the tourist magnets of Lijiang and Dali, is a green valley where rice fields are threshed by hand and locals still far outnumber tourists. This is the Shaxi (沙溪) Valley, by now discovered by international tourism but still unspoiled. Outside the village, itself a remarkable model of sustainable small-scale tourism, we managed to escape even further into the folds of mountains, untouched by the ravages of time.

A country road led out of the main town of Sideng, and we located a long path extending out seemingly towards nowhere in particular but for the hills. We parked our bicycles next to an unmanned security booth and set out following the instructions from our guesthouse. Here in these hills, we were told, lies a temple with a sacred stone the shape of a bell, and ancient stone sculptures of the gods from dynasties nearly forgotten. These buddhas were hidden so well in the hills that centuries later, the zealous Red Guard could not find them in their iconoclastic tear across the country.

buddha niche

door guardians

A creek flowed down and out of a rocky valley, crossed by a red sandstone bridge the color of the earth. A pavilion with curved eaves peeked out from the rock formations lining the sides of the valley, some sheared off in smooth planes, and some like bulbous waxy gourds standing upright. A small niche sheltered a Buddha figure at the base of one of these stones, looking much like the knotted head of the Buddha, a common metaphor for this type of stone. We spotted what we thought was our destination, a structure of red colored wood clinging to the face of a mountain. On we pressed, across rope bridges and up stairs climbing steeply along the precipice.

The structure we had seen from below turned out to be merely the door guardians of the temple complex. Behind fine wooden screens, we could see two fierce images carved into the red sandstone cliff face. We took a short break at a clearing overlooking the greater valley below, sharing sunflower seeds and local style yogurt. A Korean hiker materialized from the crevices of the gorge, the only other human we had seen for hours.

valley guys

The sun beat down through clear blue skies on orange earth and young pine needles. Our path led us up to the mountain ridge, into denser woods and then back out. A look out pavilion and trail map confirmed our arrival in the temple area proper. Another valley dropped out below us, with a temple of many levels and courtyards and emerald green hills shifting shades in the cloud dappled light.

temple levels

Inside the temple, another Buddha head stone was dedicated to Guanyin. The collection of the most rare sacred statuary was enshrined along a covered grotto, including figures of buddhas, and a Guanyin (goddess of mercy) which formerly held a child in the same way the Theotokos Mary is portrayed. The final figure was an enigmatic article, a dark object representing the female reproductive organ. Local records note that couples would visit the place and ask for help in conceiving a child.

stone bell
the stone bell

We found a pavilion overlooking the green rolling hills and picnicked on Shaxi baba and Yunnan cheese. An afternoon out of time yielded treasures from start to finish.

interactive iBooks now available on iPhone!

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In today’s parade of updates from Apple, we received an unexpected bonus. With the update to iOS 8.4, Multi-Touch iBooks are now compatible with the iPhone, in addition to the iPad and Mac. All China Tea Leaves guides are available to download today on the iPhone! And they include the full functionality of the original iPad version, with interactive maps and food guides, audio guide to speaking Mandarin, and full color photos and sketches.

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Now’s your chance to experience the interactive features of a Multi-Touch iBook, right on your iPhone. You can pinch and zoom to see text better, show your waiter in Chinese what you want for dinner, and take our interactive hand-drawn maps with you.

More features have also been added to iBooks Author, so stay tuned to find out what else these updates will bring China Tea Leaves.

the world is so big

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light rays and waterfalls in the tiger leaping gorge

世界这么大，我想去看看。

The world is so big, I want to go see.

Handwritten on a sheet of school stationery, this was the reason given by a Chinese middle school teacher for her recent resignation in April. The image of the note and its spirit have since gone viral throughout China.

Variations on the theme have been spun, from a simple switch to make China the subject, to jokes about having a wallet that is 这么小 (so small). Youku (China’s YouTube) promoted a video in which a young man travels the world with a selfie stick, while hundreds of locations spin past his extended arm. In my WeChat feed, I saw an even more strongly worded urging: 世界这么小，你还没去看？The world is so small, you haven’t gone to see it yet?

The world—China—is amazing. Let’s go see.