Long forgotten tea and horse caravan trail faces revival
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-06 09:25

On the outer edges of southwestern China's Himalayan mountains lies the formerly renowned tea and horse caravan trail which linked the arid plains of Tibet to Yunnan to the south.

An elderly musician performs among the crowd, wearing colourful traditional dress of China's ethnic Bai group, as they gather at the market place of Sideng town 28 November 2004. Long neglected by governments and tourists alike, the Shaxi region may now face a revival thanks to a Swiss project to restore some of the valley's prettiest towns to their former glory.[AFP]

Long neglected by governments and tourists alike, the Shaxi region may now face a revival thanks to a Swiss project to restore some of the valley's prettiest towns to their former glory.

In late November thousands of men and women, wearing colourful traditional dress, from China's ethnic Bai group thronged the market of Sideng town to celebrate the rehabilitation of their remote village.

For more than 1,000 years dating from the 618-907 Tang Dynasty, Sideng was a major stopping-off point on this route south of the fabled Silk Road.

It had fallen into decline until the Swiss project restored its Buddhist temple and theatre, centuries-old architectural masterpieces of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Thanks to the group's work, new wood and red brick homes with grey-tiled roofs stand clustered in the town centre.

Sideng, which sits at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres (6,562 feet) in the northwest of Yunnan, is one of several towns in the heart of Bai country which are being restored as part of the 1.3 million dollar project.

"What I like about this project is that it isn't just an architectural renovation but an integrated plan to boost socio-economic development in the Shaxi Valley," says architect Jacques Feiner of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Feiner, who has previously worked on a similar project in Yemen, is leading the project which began here in 2002 and is expected to continue for another two years.

The second stage of the rehabilitation of Shaxi will encompass broad economic and social objectives based on developing eco-tourism.

"It's a total planning project for the area, there are the spectacular sights -- the beauty of the architecture -- as well as everything you don't see," says Remo Gautschi, vice-director general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Many houses must still be renovated, others totally reconstructed.

The plan also entails installing modern sanitation systems and improving the standards of living and education of the 4,000 inhabitants of Shaxi and the 22,000 living in the valley.

In this remote corner of China, the majority of locals are peasants who live on less than 1,000 yuan (125 US dollars) a year.

"This is really a poor region which needs money to undertake some projects," says Bryan Allen, an American linguist who has worked as a school teacher in the area for three years.

Locals seem unbothered about whether this assistance comes from abroad or not. During the November 28 celebrations, locals spontaneously praised foreigners for their generosity.

Yang Hongxun, president of the Chinese Society of Architectural History Studies, is happy that the project is in foreign hands.

"At least the money used is being controlled. In the hands of local politicians, it would be used to buy them cars," said Yang, a constant critic of the architectural monstrosities of China's Communist regime.

"It's an asset to be exploited most carefully... this transportation system is almost uniquely intact," John Stubbs, of the World Monuments Fund, says of the trail.

In 2001 the fund placed the area on its list of 100 world sites in danger and collected money for the current project.

Shaxi is a "flagship" which should serve as an example of how to preserve the often-abused cultural heritage of China, Stubbs says.

Zhao Lixiong, governor of the valley's Dali prefecture, speaks of the project as an "historic event for the future of Shaxi".

But what will happen when the Swiss leave? What will become of the ecotourism projects, notably the use of horses for visitors to travel the former caravan trail, which could lead the region out of poverty?

The fear of some supporters of the project is that mass tourism is not sustainable in Shaxi and will kill the town just as Lijiang, an old city in neighbouring Yunnan, has recently been disfigured by recent renovations, new shops and hordes of visitors.

"The objective in Shaxi is the equitable redistribution of revenues from tourism," says Ricardo Favis, a cultural consultant with UNESCO (news - web sites) in Bangkok.

"We are trying to use tourism as a tool of conservation but this needs a political will, and without planning here it will be a disaster."

The situation is the same in many parts of China, says professor Yang, citing the sacred mountains of Huangshan and Taishan, scenic places now jammed with crowds and tourist shops.

One of Shaxi's trump cards, paradoxically, is its isolation. Sideng may be worth a look, but it is still tucked away at the end of a three-hour winding road trip from Lijiang airport.

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