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Published: December 6th 2010
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Menglian(@900m) is a pleasure little town to hangout for a few days, easy to get around, cheap accommodation, easy access river-side path, and...yummy grilled fish!!! There also an old quarter where they preserved the Tusi Governor House. it was first build more than 300 years ago, but was burn down in Qing dynasty, the one stood there now was rebuild about 100 years ago. the old quarter included 3 sectors, the upper city(don't let me made it sound like a huge area, I only translated it from the Chinese words) was where the governor house located and the Upper Temple. the middle city was the area lived mostly the relatives of the governor, and there also stood another nicely built temple. the lower city was where all the other officals lived in the old day, the old temple had long gone, and now they build a brand new one for replacement. The place of Menglian had been mention even in Han dynasty more than 1000 years ago, back then was call Mangtienlian. but it was kind of disappeared after a serious plaque. not until year 1253 an Dai prince find the place again and named it Menglian mean..."the best place you
could find".
Now the Governor House had turn into a exhibition hall, free entry...woahhh...free...in China is rare! inside you could see the simple setting of the living quarter of the Governor family, the living room of the 3 wives laid side by side with a simple wood partition, not much privacy for married life I guess! The main hall on groung floor depict the history of the Tusi in Menglian. my favourite was the side quarter show the costume of the 4 minority in Menglian area(only limited items). there also some costume dresses of the Tusi as well. behind the Governor House is the Jinshan(Golden Hill) where you can walk in seclusive area through wild tree trunks and branches, only the sound of traffic ruined the atmosphere.
The majority tribal group that live in Menglian county were the Lahu, Dai, Aini and the Wa. so you probably seen the same tribe in each market, Menglian market is tidy and well organized compared with Lancang market, everything happened inside the huge market square, with vegetable and meat section, foods and clothings section. and in between the walking lanes were one-man band vendor with their goods lay on the floor wherever they
find the space. not the kind of market scene I like though. but the foods scene were impressive during breakfask hour as the food section occupied one quarter of the market square, and seem like everyone came for breakfast here, rice noddle was the obviously choice, of course you could order the flat one, here they call "migan", or you can choose yellow noodle or dumping, there also other deep fried snacks, but I saw most people go for the crispy pig-skin for the combination with noodle soup, I followed suit of course!
Beside Menglian market, there is another 5 markets in the county, and all of them are easy access with public bus except...Gongxin market(one bus per day), which could only mean...road condition is bad or not enough passengers, anyways...the 5 days market cycle(one of the date had 2 markets) already enough to occupy my staying here.
Mengah(@450m)is a simple border market about 500m from the custom check point to Burma. although there wasn't any money changers hang around like many other border market, but still you could see those Burma products like cigar, perfume and local snacks. one of the interesting thing in the market was the equipment
to weight the merchandise, although just the normal balancing scale, but the weight units were used and old batteries, they tied 3 batteries for 1/4kg, 6 batteries for 0.5kg etc, clever and rather eco-friendly for recycling!
beside the Dai and Lahu, I could spot the Wa, the small pointy hat and typical salong with stripe pattern in black and unique Wa's red. Mengah market wasn't very busy, "the market moved here about 3 months now" a vendor told me, it was used to be in the old village and smaller, perhaps the market square is far too big for this small area, no wonder it seem quiet.
Mangxin market is about 25km from Menglian, another small market but colourful, yes...because of the Aini! there was 2 different dressing style, one was similar to those in Lancang with kind of head scarf, but here they tailor made it into a hat, the jacket is the same style only less decorated, as I saw those wear this kind of headdress were mostly older women. same low-cut shirt and legging. the other was the colourful one that I'd seen many years ago. the hat was kind of like....imagine a stool with a straight
up back, not plain but decorated with many silver coins and bottons, feather thread and fluffy balls, colour glass-beads and sea shells, but that was only the headdress part, there was plenty of embroidered pattern on the back of their jacket too, many rounds of bead-string on cross shoulder and round their waist, knee lenght skirt, gridle with decorated part came down in front and lovely legging, of course there also bracelets and ear-rings. heavy wasn't it, but I never got tire of looking at them. the most wonderful thing was...they wouldn't really mind my being there and took their picture. by comparison...the Wa seem colourless, but the huge ear-ring still an eye catcher. not much could be write about the Dai and Lahu although they also took part in the tribe scene in Mangxin as....just dull!
Fuyan market stood on a altitude about 1400m, a bit cold to went up there in morning time. Fuyan is a Wa dominated area, and in the market you could have a far better glimpse of details of their costume. actually I saw one more sub-group of Wa there. they wear the same style of headdress, a piece of cloth folded back from
behind and created a small pointy top then setup with silver chains, collarless shirt and jacket in sharply blue and green, they wear the same style of long skirt though. the other general type of Wa wear the same headdress, short sleeve dark pullover shirt with V-shape collar, dark long sleeve jacket with an huge round silver plaque as knot in the middle, glass-beads string round their waist and long skirt with stripe pattern, The Wa also had their unique smoking pipe and shoulder bag...and...the ear-ring was even more bigger here! here in Fuyan you won't see any Dai and Aini, but the Lahu offered a surprise, I saw some of them came with more costume detail, not just the shoulder bag. they wear long sleeve jacket and long skirt with plenty of stripe lines and patterns, although it was more like those festival standard costume to me, and not exactly like the description in the exhibition inside the Governor House. but still...they prefer to wear it for their identity and that how we could distinguish them in the crowd.
Mengma was my last market in Menglian area, perhaps it was the same tribal scene and even less interesting in
number, bit feed-up. atmosphere was good though as it wasn't just set inaide the market square, it extended into a small street and gave a better impression. Mengma is one of the area that grow tobacco in the area beside tea and rubber, the Dai grow it and sell it but didn't smoke it, hey...sure they knew what's good for the body! on the other hand, the Lahu and Wa and Aini is the smoker, wouldn't waste any chance to roll one whenever they sae a tobacco stand. Dai are the majority in Mengma, and you could see Lahu and small number of Wa in the market. Mengma valley is fertile and wide, about 3km outside of town has a small resort offered hot-spring water in a swimming pool, you can get a dip for 10 kuai.
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Fanny and Peter
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Menglian
It is nice to see some photos again from Menglian and Fuyan. Did you visit "the Wanderer" in Menglian ? It is a great (travelers)cafe, but you don't see travelers in Menglian. It is a Wa girl, who speaks very good English and serves delisious "smoothys". Have fun for the rest of your trip Fanny and Peter