20100916

LI JIANG 6



Went horse trekking - seeing the "Tea & Horse Trail" 茶马古道 on horse back.
Starting from Lashi Lake, we rode on horses, travelled through fields, gently went up the hills, finding traces of ancient Naxi traders ... it was only a small, a very small peep into this rich history ...


"The Tea and Horse Road of Southwest China is less well known than the famous Silk Road. Its route crosses some very high and dangerous terrain. It begins from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in Southwest China, runs along the eastern foothills of the Hengduan Mountains, a center of tea production in China, then crosses the Hengduan mountain range and deep canyons of several major rivers, the Yalong, the Jinsha (the upper reaches of Yangtze), the Lancang (Mekong), and the Nu (Salween), thus spanning the two highest plateaus of China (Qinghai-Tibet and Yunnan-Guizhou) before finally reaching India south of the Himalayas.

The name of the road indicates its importance in the trade of tea and horses, but other products passed along it as well. Horse caravans carried tea, sugar and salt from Sichuan and Yunnan to Tibet and brought back colorful local mountain goods. The Chinese over the ages often bought warhorses from Tibetan and other ethnic groups of Southwest China, and these too came over this road. The road also served as a significant corridor for migration as well as a channel for cultural communication among the ethnic groups in western China; beyond this, it was a bridge for international cultural and economic exchange between China and India. Although silk was not included in the trade goods carried over it, at times it has been termed the “Southern Silk Road of China,” due to its importance in both economic and cultural aspects of Chinese history.

... According to the surveys, the tea and horse route from Sichuan to Lhasa is some 2350 kilometers long, with fifty-six traveling stages. One has fifty-one river crossings, fifteen rope bridges and ten iron bridges and traverses seventy-eight mountains over 3000 meters high. All of this makes the route one of the most difficult in the world. "






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7 comments:

winterludes said...

Wonderfull girl in a nice landscape. I love green laces of shoes...

Kenza said...

Lovely! and thanks for the info. So nice to be learning new things.
And well ... I love just love horses!
I will post some music tomorrow that your little one may like...
Lots of kisses!

Yoli said...

You know how I adore China and this gives me another glimpse and history which I love. Like Kenza I am also a huge horse lover. This is a wonderful post.

Have you ever gone to Inner Mongolia?

alliot + iza said...

Kenza & Yoli, iza is also a HUGH horse lover :) She would love to live in a farm and stay with horses everyday. It's her little dream :)
We have not been to Inner Mongolia yet. We are looking forward to visit it one day.

Evelyne said...

Le cheval offre la liberté et l'harmonie pour de nombreuses jeunes filles.

**EYE-SNACKS** said...

wow, how wonderful must it have been to go with a horse trip to lovely places.If I had know that I could do that but when I was in China I didn't know it.Love to see thos documentation,thanks.

Fei An said...

The two sets of pictures seems a little beautiful film to me... lots of imaginations...you are always good at showing a mood from your pictures, at least, to me...

Send the blue knitting dress and the the black blouse to you and Iza Friday. Hopefully, it will fit to Iza's size.

Have a good start of the week!!!