The Last Surviving Caravan Square: Sideng Street and the 600-Year Memory
Tucked inside an emerald agricultural bowl midway between Dali and Lijiang, Shaxi was once the strategic midway staging depot on the Ancient Tea Horse Road (茶马古道). For over a thousand years, mule caravans laden with compressed black tea from the tropical river valleys of Xishuangbanna climbed through Yunnan's cloud-capped gorges, trading fermented brick tea for Tibetan warhorses, musk, and medicinal rhubarb. Here, the valley broadens, offering rich pastures, sweet river water, and the natural amphitheater of Sideng Market Square (寺登街).
Stand in the center of Sideng Square before the weathered three-tiered Kuixing Pavilion theater stage. Beneath your boots, the deep red sandstone flagstones are worn smooth as jade by the iron-shod hooves of millions of mules. Look closely: concentric circular indentations carved by centuries of heavy wooden trade scales mark the flagstones outside Xingjiao Temple. Early in the morning, before any shops open, the silence of the plaza carries an almost palpable historical weight.
A caution for the romantic traveller: most buildings around Sideng Square are only about a century old. Bandit raids and fires repeatedly destroyed the town, and it was rebuilt each time. What genuinely survives is the spatial layout — the square, the stage facing the temple across the street, the three village gates — plus the Ming-dynasty Xingjiao Temple of 1415. Jacques Feiner, a Swiss conservation architect who had worked in Sana'a's old city, chose Shaxi around 2000; the Shaxi Rehabilitation Project was formally initiated in 2002 by ETH Zurich with the Jianchuan county government. The team avoided reinforced concrete, restoring mortise-and-tenon timber joints, rammed-earth walls and cobblestone drainage with Bai village carpenters.
Dawn over Yujin Bridge: The Contemplative Route along the Heihui River
The spiritual heart of a mindful walk in Shaxi lies at Yujin Bridge (玉津桥), a single-arch stone span over the Heihui River. Its history is more turbulent than its calm appearance suggests. The Qing-dynasty crossing here was an iron chain bridge, destroyed in the warfare of the Xianfeng era (1851–1861). The present arch was funded by local gentry beginning in 1921 and took fourteen years to complete; the Bai scholar Zhao Fan wrote the fundraising appeal. It is 35.4 metres long and 5 metres wide, with a clear span of 12 metres and a rise of 6. To cross it at 06:30 AM is to step through a living classical ink landscape.
At dawn, thick river fog rolls off the cold waters of the Heihui River, clinging to the willow boughs and swallowing the far banks. Local Bai grandmothers with woven bamboo baskets on their backs cross the high stone arch, their silhouettes framed against pale blue mountain mist. Follow the gravel trail southward along the river dyke for 2 kilometers past ripe barley terraces and mud-brick farmsteads. Here, sparrows chirp in walnut canopies, and the modern world feels ten thousand leagues away.
马帮铃铎动微霜，残照依依下夕阳。莫道边荒无雅乐，山川处处是沧桑。
Mǎ bāng líng duó dòng wēi shuāng, cán zhào yī yī xià xī yáng. Mò dào biān huāng wú yǎ yuè, shān chuān chù chù shì cāng sāng.
“The pack-caravan bells stir beneath the light frost; / Lingering twilight fades into the setting sun. / Say not this rugged frontier lacks refined music: / In every mountain and stream, the deep past sings.”
Trekking into Shibaoshan: Red Sandstone Precipices and Nanzhao Grottoes
Directly southwest of Shaxi rises Mount Shibao (Stone Treasure Mountain), a dramatic formation of red sandstone dome towers above dense subtropical pine forest — the local name for this weathering pattern is 'tortoise-back stone'. Chiselled into these crimson cliffs are seventeen grottoes, cut over some 320 years from the ninth to the twelfth century during the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. In March 1961 they were designated a National Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit in the very first batch, listed alongside the Forbidden City, Mogao and Longmen. They remain the only stone grottoes in China devoted to Azhali esoteric Buddhism, the tantric school that reached Yunnan from India and Tibet.
Completing the entire walking loop from Shaxi through the mountain trail to Shizhong Temple covers approximately 8.5 kilometers. Sitting on the sandstone balustrade of the grotto, listening to wind whistling through the dry pine needles, one senses the vast geopolitical web that once bridged China, India, and the Islamic world across these mountain ridges.
The Forest Pilgrim Path: Haiyun Hermitage to Baoxiang Temple
Skip the tourist parking lots and take the historic stone pilgrim path starting from Haiyun Hermitage (海云居), built in the Kangxi reign of the Qing. The path climbs gently through towering native Yunnan pines (Pinus yunnanensis), the ground cushioned by decades of fragrant brown pine needles. As you approach Baoxiang Temple (宝相寺), founded in the Yuan dynasty and called 'Yunnan's Hanging Temple', the path hugs sheer conglomerate cliffs where Tibetan macaques leap through cypress branches. Mount Shibao spans 25 square kilometres, from Shadengqing at 2,140 m to Foding Peak at 3,038 m — enough altitude range that the weather changes between valleys.
Trail has continuous stone stairs. Carry trekking poles and avoid carrying plastic bags openly to prevent feeding confrontations with curious native monkeys.
Shizhong Temple Caves 1–2: Two Nanzhao Kings in Stone
The artistic pinnacle is the Shizhong Temple zone (石钟寺区), eight caves in all. Cave 1 is the Assembly of Yi Mouxun (异牟寻议政图), a seated portrait of the sixth Nanzhao king (r. 778–808) with his civil and military officials. Cave 2, the most finely carved of the group with sixteen figures, is the Procession of Geluofeng (阁逻凤出巡图), the fifth king (r. 748–778). Note that numbering differs between sources; this guide follows the three-zone system of Shizhong Temple, Shiziguan and Shadengqing. What makes these caves rare is not the buddhas but the court scenes — a king's household rendered with the same chisel as a deity.
Cave 7's 'Venus of the East', Cave 8 and the Inscribed Foreigner
Cave 7 holds the Sweet-Dew Guanyin (甘露观音), known locally as the 'split-belly Guanyin' and to art historians as the 'Venus of the East'. Her earrings, armlets and bracelets absorb Gandharan modelling filtered into Yunnan through Burma and Tibet; a cavity in her chest once held relics and scriptures, and was looted. Cave 8, the 'Ayang Bai' (阿央白), is a carved female generative symbol — unprecedented in Chinese grotto art and evidence of a surviving mother-lineage cult; for generations women came here to pray for children. At Shiziguan, one cave holds a deep-eyed, high-nosed figure with the four characters 'person from Persia' inscribed beside him, proof that this valley sat on a southern Silk Road reaching India, Burma and West Asia. Cave 5's Vimalakirti tableau packs more than twenty figures into a mountain scene, the smallest barely two centimetres tall.
The grottoes sit on a 4A-rated scenic area shared with Shaxi old town, about 21 km southwest of Jianchuan county seat and 15 km from the Dali–Lijiang expressway. The Ming-dynasty Xingjiao Temple in Shaxi (1415) and the grottoes are best combined in one day. Xu Xiake described the rock here as 'scaled like a dragon'; Jin Yong visited in 1998 and inscribed 'Treasure of the Southern Sky'.
The Architect Who Stayed: Huang Yinwu and Eighteen Years in One Valley
Every restored old town in China has a foreign consultant who flies in for workshops. Shaxi has something rarer: a Chinese architect who came for a two-year Swiss project and never left. Huang Yinwu (黄印武), trained at ETH Zurich, joined the Shaxi Rehabilitation Project in 2003 as its on-site lead.
His operating principle is four characters long: maximum retention, minimum intervention. Rather than beginning with the photogenic temple, he began with three unremarkable century-old courtyard gates — the structures villagers actually used every day. He then buried the utilities: water, power and sewage were laid underground to a standard better than Jianchuan county town's, so that a visitor standing in Sideng Square cannot see a single overhead cable. International charitable funding of roughly fourteen million RMB was raised for the work. In 2011 the Swiss team and the international fund withdrew. Huang stayed, bought an old house, and made Shaxi his base. He is now chair of the Department of Architecture at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Design and heads the Shaxiyuan Rural Cooperation Centre, which continues the work as a village-led practice rather than a heritage project.
Stand in Sideng Square and notice the axis: the ancient theatre stage and Xingjiao Temple face each other across the street. Huang Yinwu's explanation is worth more than any guidebook plaque — local people believe the Buddha should be able to watch the opera along with everyone else. The temple's four-year restoration kept two painted guardian kings flanking the entrance, blue on the left and red on the right. This is Bai Azhali Buddhism: not a monastic order set apart from the village, but a participant in its festivals.
Tactical Field Notes: Transit from Dali/Lijiang, Slow Stay, and Market Days
Shaxi has no railway station and no airport, and its first paved road to the outside world was only completed in 2009. That single fact is why it survived the homogenisation that flattened so many Chinese old towns. Independent travellers can still reach it easily on regional transit — but plan for a transfer, not a through ticket.
• Regional Transit: From Dali Railway Station, take a bus from the Dali North Terminal to Jianchuan County (剑川), about two hours. Outside the Jianchuan terminal, shared rural minibuses run to Shaxi's Sideng Street, roughly 45 minutes. From Lijiang the same transfer applies, and the newer expressway has cut the Lijiang–Shaxi leg to about ninety minutes by car. There is no rail access at any point; do not let a map app route you to a station that does not exist. • Stay in Traditional Rammed Earth: Book heritage Bai courtyards renovated under the rehabilitation project inside the ancient core. Rammed earth stays cool in summer and warm in winter, and at night the only sound is the river. • Friday Market Protocol: If your itinerary permits, arrive Thursday evening for the Friday Market (周五赶集). Highland Bai and Yi villagers come down at dawn to trade wild mushrooms, walnuts, Nuodeng ham and hand-forged copper kettles. The produce and livestock trading now happens in the new town area along the modern road, so the historic square stays quiet. • The Drama That Changed Shaxi: the 2023 television series Meet Yourself (去有风的地方), starring Liu Yifei and Li Xian and available on Netflix outside China, filmed here. Visitor numbers rose sharply afterwards. Huang Yinwu's own verdict is blunt: the market is pushing Shaxi down the road Lijiang already travelled, and that is not something he can control. Come on a weekday in the low season if you want the valley rather than the set.
Quick Answers
Does Shaxi have a train station? How do I reach it from Dali or Lijiang without a private driver?+
No. Shaxi has no rail access at all — the nearest stations are Dali and Lijiang. Take a bus from Dali North Terminal or Lijiang Bus Station to Jianchuan Bus Terminal (about two hours), then transfer to a shared rural minibus right outside the station for the final 45 minutes into Shaxi. Since 2009 the valley has had a paved road; before that it was effectively cut off, which is precisely why the old town survived.
Is the famous Friday Market too crowded for a mindful literary traveler?+
The central Sideng Square remains remarkably peaceful even on market days. The active vegetable and livestock trading takes place in the outer market area along the modern road, offering vivid cultural photography without disturbing the historic core.
Is the Shaxi old town I see today genuinely ancient, or was it rebuilt?+
Mostly rebuilt, and honestly so. Bandit raids and fires destroyed the town repeatedly; the buildings around Sideng Square are largely about a century old. What is genuinely old is the layout — the square, the stage facing Xingjiao Temple across the street, the three village gates — and the temple itself, dating to 1415 in the Ming dynasty. The 2002 rehabilitation project deliberately repaired rather than reconstructed, so what you see is authentic village fabric, not a theme park.
Can international credit cards be used in Shaxi town cafes and guesthouses?+
Nearly all shops, cafes, and guesthouses accept Alipay and WeChat Pay linked to international Visa/Mastercard. Keep a little cash on hand for the shared rural minibuses, which may not take cards.
Tools & Booking
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Sources & Further Reading
- Shaxi Ancient Town & Mount Shibao (4A Scenic Area) — Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture People's Government. www.dali.gov.cn/dlzrmzf/c101724/pc/content/1968887435470409728/c
- Shaxi, a Town Whose Memory Was Awakened by the Swiss — The New York Times Chinese Edition, 2016. cn.nytimes.com/china/20160329/c29shaxi
- Kunming Training and Research Programme: Shaxi Rehabilitation Project (2002) — ETH Zurich, Institute for Spatial and Landscape Development. irl.ethz.ch/research/plus/abgeschlossene_projekte/kunming.html
- Huang Yinwu: Guardian of Shaxi Ancient Town — School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. designschool.sjtu.edu.cn/dynamic/news/detail/6687912ed7deb80559b
- Shaxi Market Area — World Monuments Fund. www.wmf.org/projects/shaxi-market-area
- Reviving Shaxi Town on the Ancient Tea Horse Road — CGTN / Xinhua, 2019. news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e7941544f32457a6333566d54/index.html
- Shizhongshan Grottoes (cave-by-cave catalogue and 1961 listing No. 1-47) — Chinese Wikipedia. zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9F%B3%E9%92%9F%E5%B1%B1%E7%9F%B3%E7%AA
- Jianchuan Grottoes: Reading a Thousand Years Carved into the Land — China Youth Daily, 2017. news.youth.cn/jsxw/201707/t20170723_10354581.htm
- China's Ancient Tea Horse Road — Andrew Forbes & David Henley, Cognoscenti Books, 2011. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Horse_Road
Historical facts, dates and figures in this guide are cross-checked against the primary and institutional sources listed below. Verse translations are credited to their published translators; where no verifiable published translation exists, the rendering is our own and marked as such.