Yunnan Spring Greetings (IX)
Buddha’s light comes later. First, there is the journey to Yuanyang. I had planned to write more about the difficulties of getting there, but I would rather let the photographs do most of the talking. Here are a few views from the road.
Even the journey there made my heart beat faster. For many kilometers, the road was lined with trees carrying large red blossoms.
Total traffic gridlock. We arrived during the Spring Festival holiday.
We traveled from Yuanjiang (元江) to Yuanyang (元阳). Yuanyang was always a non-negotiable part of our planning. Even with the Spring Festival crowds and unpredictable weather, it was an unforgettable natural spectacle. I want to show you how quickly a landscape changes; some of these photos look similar, but they capture shifts that happened in just a few seconds.
Yuanyang: Life on the Terraces
Yuanyang is home to several ethnic communities, including the Hani (哈尼族) and Yi (彝族). Their clothing, food and customs are part of the life of the region.
The water-filled rice terraces turn whole mountainsides into reflecting surfaces. The Hani people have developed this farming landscape over some 1,300 years, channeling water from forests above the villages down into the fields. The Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2013. It is a working agricultural landscape, not simply a view.
Chasing the Light
The following photo series covers two sunrises, two sunsets, and two locations we visited during the day. Finding the perfect light here is pure luck. Some travelers come all this way and see nothing but a wall of white fog.
Out of the six spots we visited, we only hit one wall of mist. But even then, we weren’t completely blocked. We were lucky enough to witness a phenomenon known as Buddha’s Light (佛光 – Fóguāng).
The colored rings are an optical glory. As the World Meteorological Organization explains, they appear opposite the sun when light interacts with small water droplets in cloud or fog, often around the observer’s shadow. A glory looks rainbow-like, but it is a distinct phenomenon. I was happy to take our sighting as a good omen.
Here is the gallery. (The photos are not always in chronological order.) No more words needed—just enjoy the view. 🙏
Sunrise and Sunset in Yuanyang
We left Yuanyang on a clear morning and took one last look…
My Landscape Painting portfolio offers another view of mountains, water and open space, from early Austrian landscapes to work shaped by Chinese shan shui painting.
More Yunnan Spring Greetings: Part I – Spring Greetings · Part II – Just Shaxi · Part III – Density, Depth, Tradition and Authenticity · Part IV – Every Day an Adventure · Part V – Pure Dao · Part VI – Along the Tea Road · Part VII – South of the Clouds · Part VIII – Customs, Traditions and Religion · Part IX – Buddha’s Light · Part X – Afterthoughts on the Yunnan Journey
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South of the Clouds · Afterthoughts on the Yunnan Journey · Nature’s Calligraphy: The Art of Seeing
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