Xishuangbanna Travel Guide (Food + Accommodation)

Xishuangbanna is an extremely beautiful scenic spot in China, full of beautiful elements. Here you will experience a different kind of passion and excitement, a model of beauty, everything is under your eyes. Here is a detailed travel guide to Xishuangbanna.

From Chengdu to Xishuangbanna via Zhaotong

Along the way, I saw the karst landform for the first time. The mountains were towering, the slopes were connected, like wind pouring into the sea.

It’s completely different from the desolate impression in the geography textbook, it’s like wrinkles on the earth, like ripples, on the plateau at an altitude of 1800 meters, like an old man from the ocean.

Tropical rainforest climate, hot and humid all year round, the daily temperature in April has reached 37 degrees, almost the same as August in Chengdu.

It often rains suddenly at noon, then stops abruptly. The sun breaks through the clouds, like a child bursting into laughter. Xishuangbanna borders Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, located in a frontier region, with mixed folk customs, abundant products and cultural integration. It is similar to the trading post of ancient times. Walking on the road, one moment you hear Chinese, the next moment someone walks by speaking Thai; on this street you sell Lao fruits, turn around and you are greeted by merchants selling Burmese jade.

The way of eating in Xishuangbanna can be described as a competition between four countries.
Even without a local recommendation, you can eat authentic Dai food, Thai food, Burmese food and Lao food. If you follow the top-ranked restaurants recommended by Dianping, you won’t be disappointed. Dai food is spicy, Lao food likes to use lemon, Thai food is a mix of both, Burmese food is strange and weird.

Dai New Year: Dragon Boat Racing, Bathing Buddha Day, Ganbai Festival, Water Splashing Festival

In April in Xishuangbanna, everyone is preparing for the New Year. The young men have cleaned the dragon boats and the girls have prepared new clothes.

I haven’t really felt the New Year for about ten years, probably only in shopping malls, dinner tables and the Spring Festival Gala.

The indifference to culture happens quietly and continues to affect us. Many times, many cultures, many traditions, need a sense of ritual. I didn’t understand why emperors always had to worship heaven, to offer sacrifices, to worship Confucius, to do things that are big but have no practical meaning, it’s better to recuperate and develop economic construction.

But it is these seemingly useless rituals that have left a legacy called Confucianism for civilization that has seen dynasties change and wars rage for millennia.

Walking on the road in Xishuangbanna, you can see girls wearing Dai costumes everywhere, with dark skin, clear eyes and reserved expressions, but when you see the Ganbai Festival, you will understand, this is not Dai clothing, it is clearly wedding clothes.

In each village and village, the girls who are usually “hidden” gather together, walk out one after another, elegant and charming, vying for beauty.

Similar to Hanfu, Dai costumes have simple and elaborate variations, there are everyday wear and ceremonial wear, and the craftsmanship changes, the workmanship is simpler, and the choice of materials is completely different. To go deeper, there is also a complete set of national costume culture.

The “Ganbai Festival” of the Dai New Year is probably the feast of this costume culture, its magnificence, splendor, richness, exquisiteness, and the incomparable girls, are no less than a Xishuangbanna Victoria’s Secret show.

The food of Xishuangbanna

It can be divided into fruits and dishes. Let’s talk about fruits first. The fruits in Xishuangbanna are definitely one of the best in the country, with almost a full range of choices. There are many warehouse-style fruit markets where you can choose your own, accept large orders, and also sell pre-packaged ready-to-eat products.

Especially durian, dragon fruit, cantaloupe, small pineapple are in season, full, sweet, fragrant, juicy, and cheap, averaging a few yuan per pound, you can eat a variety of fruit mixes until you are full.

Then there are the dishes. Because I was on a business trip, I would choose takeout. The reputation evaluation relies on Dianping.

I ordered the popular chicken oil rice, lemon sprinkle and paluda, rich, sweet and sour, intense, from the ingredients to the spices there is a natural plant fragrance, which is different from the direction that the eight major cuisines rely on, and is contrary to the beauty emphasized by the Central Plains food culture, but it creates another category of deliciousness.

You don’t even need to figure out if the dishes you eat are from the Dai, Laos or Thailand, and you don’t need to deliberately define your taste buds. Just know that this is a meal that belongs to Xishuangbanna, and it will leave a lifelong impression, that’s enough.

Everyday life in Xishuangbanna

Because it is hot during the day, the day of a person in Xishuangbanna often starts from 10 pm. Divided into north and south banks by the Lancang River, it is divided into old and new cities. The north bank is the Jinghong commercial area, and the south bank is the newly developed residential area. The nightlife is different. The nightlife, nightclubs, bars, KTVs are lined up. At two or three in the morning, the streets are still bustling, shops are brightly lit, vehicles and pedestrians are coming and going, with singing passing through the Lancang River.

Sometimes you are too used to the world, immersed in life, content with existence, not thinking about life and death, and you will not be surprised by the world.

You know that everything is fleeting, love is hard to hold, like the dew of the morning, like the sunset on the ancient plains, like the flying stars in the Milky Way.

You have walked through such a sexy and special city, and on the West Island where the south wind blows dreams, you wrote down its name.

I thought for a long time, what kind of sentence to write as the ending of the Xishuangbanna travelogue.

When I was flipping through a book, I saw a love letter from Premier Zhou Enlai to his wife Deng Yingchao:

“I have been a staunch materialist all my life, only you, I hope there is a next life”

Xishuangbanna, I also hope to come again.