When I started this blog I intended to begin with one of my favorite photos from my travels through Yunnan - it’s a snapshot of me riding a fluffy white yak, with blue sky and the Himalayas behind me standing as a stunning backdrop.
However, doing that would require me to fast-forward my journey along the Ancient Tea and Horse Road past a delicious 48 hours I spent in a sleepy little town called Shaxi.
Shaxi is a historic market town in Yunnan, known for its famous Sideng market square which was added to the World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites in 2001. I was lucky to arrive on market day, and got to experience the sights and sounds of this unique place where the local people come from all over the mountainsides to trade and buy their local goods.
However it wasn’t the market day that made this place so memorable for me - it was special because of instead of going along on the day-trip excursions that were planned for the day, I decided to follow my intuition and stay in Shaxi so I could wander, collect color notes, rest, try some restaurants, make photographs and really…..just soak up the atmosphere of this beautiful gem of a town along the road to Tibet.