Yuxi and Eshan

The first major city on the Kunming-Jinghong highway is Yuxi, 88 km southwest of Kunming. The countryside of low, rolling hills is prime tobacco-growing land and cigarette production is one of the county's prime industries. Other light industries have given the city recent prosperity, reflected in the clean streets and fancy new high-rise buildings on the outskirts. The business district is dominated by its main north-south avenue (Nanbeidajie), while the side streets are still full of shop houses in the traditional style and lined with shade trees.

A small park in the southern quarter has an old pavilion, pond and rockery, but a much larger and nicer one lies along Hongtajie. At one end a classic two-story, red wooden pavilion sits beside a pond. Two more ponds lie south of this one, each graced with a small viewing pavilion in the centre. Behind the last pond is a small garden park where Yuxi men come to play board games under the trees, while listening to their caged songbirds.

In the southeast suburbs stands the 25-metre tall, tapering seven-story, close-eaved pagoda called Hongta, the Red Pagoda. Originally a Yuan Dynasty structure of light blue limestone, restored in the late Qing Dynasty, it was in recent decades painted a brilliant red. It has become the emblem for Yunnan's finest quality cigarette-Hongtashan.

Several resorts lie in the vicinity of the county seat. The closest is Nie Er Park, in the city's southwest suburbs. Nie Er composed China's national anthem and the park contains his residence and the lotus pool where he went swimming, along with pavilions, gardens and ponds.

Nie Er Music Square

The Nine Dragon Pond Resort, 10 km north-west of Yuxi, dates its construction to the Ming Dynasty. The pine forest here was supposed to have been planted by a Buddhist monk around then. White Dragon Pond, 10 km northeast, owes its foundation to an ancient love story. A white dragon fell in love with a peasant girl as she fetched water from the fountain. The dragon assumed human form to woo her. She was willing enough to marry him, but worried about who would fetch water for her mother. So the white dragon created the stream which flowed into her village.

The other major park in the area is that at Black Dragon Pond, 8 km from the city. A smaller pond in this park is known as the Weather-Forecasting Pond, for its colour and surface change according to an imminent change in weather. A watchman is employed there so that nearby villagers can call him up and find out whether it's going to rain, storm or be fair weather.

Continuing south the road climbs into the hills,heavily wooded with almost no sign of habitation, and crosses into Eshan County. The county seat lies 30 km from Yuxi, straddling the Ni River, smaller and less modernised than Yuxi. Also dirtier, with only a couple pavilions at the south end of the river providing anything resembling a park or recreation area. One of the most colourful branches of the Yi live in the mountains to the southwest and occasionally they visit the city. All the women wear their traditional costumes: jacket, apron, trousers and headgear all heavily embroidered, with an emphasis on red.

The Hui presence is much more pervasive. Several Hui restaurants are in town and neighbouring villages are mostly Hui. At Dabaiyi Hui village, just a few km northeast, a green domed Islamic Institute dominates the buildings. An elegant, Chinese style mosque, with a two-tiered gate tower, lies in the next neighbourhood.

The largest mosque in Yunnan is in nearby Wenming village, about 6 km from Dabaiyi. It is in the Arabian style, in a compound at the foot of the hill at the end of the village. The prayer hall is elevated and its floor covered in Arabian carpets.