Yunnan Spring Greetings [IX]
Buddha’s light comes later. First, there is a difficult path ahead. I’ll skip most of the struggle for now. I originally planned to go into detail, but I’d rather let the photos do the talking. Today is all about the visuals, and for good reason. Just a few photos from the road before.
Even the journey there makes your heart beat faster. For many kilometers, the road is lined with flowering trees. By the way: The blossoms of these trees are quite large and you can prepare a wonderful dish with them.
Total traffic gridlock. This can happen if you arrive during the spring festival.
We traveled from Yuanjiang (元江)—which I’ll cover in another post—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
Where are we? This region is home to several ethnic minority groups, predominantly the Hani (哈尼族) and the Yi (彝族). They maintain their own distinct clothing, lifestyles, cuisine, and customs.
The area is world-famous for its massive, ancient rice terraces that have carved entire mountains into cascading mirrors. These terraces are a masterpiece of indigenous engineering, managed by the Hani people (哈尼族) for over 1,300 years to channel water from the forested mountaintops down through the villages. This delicate balance between human labor and nature has earned the cultural landscape a place as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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 rare phenomenon: Buddha’s Light (佛光 – Fóguāng).
When the mist density and the sun’s angle align perfectly, a circular rainbow appears within the fog. Of course, it is considered an auspicious 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 leave Yuanyang on a fogless morning and take one last look…
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
Related articles: The Journey to the Zen Master | The Abundance of Modesty | On Giving, Taking, and What Truly Matters
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