Apart from visiting markets in the Jinghong area I also visited some ethnic villages and Buddhist temples.
The Dai people live in large wooden houses and have small farms. Some also grow and tap rubber.
The source of the tyres we love to travel on. I found this by wandering off a road onto a path.
Some of them are smart enough to have retained their culture and put an elaborate gateway across the entrance to their village and charge an exorbitant amount of money for entry. The village certainly looks prosperous even if the new plumbing looks ugly.
This is one of the numerous large houses in the village.
Tourism has provided many jobs including in entertainment where they re-enact the Water Splashing Festival each day and tourists can join in. I saw one small kid with a super soaker type water gun ready to become part of the act. Normally this is an annual cultural festival where they splash each other with water to wash away the sorrows and dramas of the previous year. The wetter you become the better. Given the temperatures in that part of the world being wet isn’t a problem.
This is part of the recreation of the Water Splashing Festival.
The temple attached to that particular village is especially old and attractive.
This is one side of the temple.
And this is another side. It was richly decorated by the use of stencils and had beautifully coloured old roof tiles.
The others I saw are made from modern materials and don’t have the beauty and dignity of that one.
A village owned by the Bulang people is much more higgley piggley in its setting out without the shaded lanes and vegetation which is around the Dai village. It’s also on a slope too.
