JINGHONG , Xishuangbanna's small and easy-going "Dawn Capital", first became a seat of power under the Dai warlord
Bazhen , who drove the Bulang and Hani tribes off these fertile central flatlands and founded the independent kingdom of Cheli in 1180. It has been maintained as an administrative centre ever since. There was a moment of excitement in the late nineteenth century when a battalion of British soldiers marched in during a foray from Burma, but they soon decided that Jinghong was too remote to be worth the effort of defending. An attempt to forge a highway through Xishuangbanna during the 1950s (only recently completed) saw Jinghong built up in the grey edifices of the contemporary Han style. Now being slowly modernized, these make a suitably colonial backdrop for Dai women in bright sarongs and straw hats meandering along the gently simmering, palm-lined streets.
For the most part, the city is simply an undemanding place to spend a couple of days adjusting to Xishuangbanna's climate and investigating Dai culture. Aside from energetic excesses during the water-splashing festivities, you'll find the pace of life is set by the tropical heat - though the centre is often full of people, nobody bothers rushing anywhere. Once you've tried the local food and poked around the temples and villages which encroach on the suburbs, there's plenty of transport into the rest of the region
The City
Right in Jinghong's centre,
Ganlan Hu (Peacock Lake) is an unexceptional, small, flagstoned park and pond used for early morning exercises. More interesting is the
Tropical Crops Research Institute , 1.5km west down Jinghong Xi Lu (daily 8am-5pm; ¥5), a few acres of economically useful palms, fruit trees, and brightly flowering shrubs and vines, nicely arranged around a thin lake. Shops outside the Institute's entrance sell local herbal remedies such as
dragon's blood . Across the road are the
Medicinal Botanic Gardens (daily 8am-5pm), a quiet grove of gingers and small shrubs growing in the gloom of closely planted, unidentified rainforest trees. The gardens lead through to a large
Traditional Medicine Clinic , whose friendly staff might invite you in for a cup of tea and impromptu
qi gong demonstration - one doctor specializes in plugging himself into a wall socket and passing electrical currents through patients' bodies.
For some more greenery and an introduction to Dai life, head about 3km southeast of the centre to Manting , once a separate village but now absorbed into Jinghong's lazy spread. On the way here down Manting Lu, you'll pass a brisk morning market outside the temple school of Wat Chienglarn . Traditionally, all Dai boys spend three years at such institutions getting a grounding in Buddhism and learning to read and write - skills denied to Dai women. Manting itself is mostly modern, though Neolithic pottery has been dug up here and a few older, two-storey wooden Dai houses still lurk in the wings (you'll see entire villages of these elsewhere in the region). Near the end of the road is Wat Manting (¥1), Jinghong's main Buddhist monastery and the largest in all Xishuangbanna, a simply furnished affair recently rebuilt with donations from Thailand - check out the glossy jinghua murals , an art form derived from India, and the roof rafters, full of ceremonial bits and pieces. Dai temples differ from others across the land both in their general shape and the almost exclusive use of wood in their construction, which necessitates their being raised off the ground on low piles to guard against termites and rot. Also unlike Buddhists anywhere else in China, whose Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) teachings filtered through from India, the Dais follow the Theravada (Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle) school of thought, a sect common to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos and Burma. As the Dai consider feet to be the most unclean part of the body, remember to remove your shoes before entering any temple.
Next to Wat Manting is the rather more secular Chunhuan Park (also known as Manting Park; daily 8am-7.30pm, ¥10; 7.30-11.30pm, ¥2), where the royal slaves were formerly kept. Official tour groups are shown water-splashing highlights every afternoon, and there's also a large pen bursting with 100 peacocks , which you can feed. Corners of the park are very pleasant, paths crossing over one of the Lancang River's tiny tributaries to full-scale copies of Jingzhen's Bajiao Ting and a portly, Dai-style pagoda. Continuing past the park, the road ends at Manloh Hon village , which gets its water through the efforts of a large bamboo waterwheel, beyond which is a ferry across the Lancang to paddy fields, more villages and banana groves.
