Shuhe Naxi Village

The Shuhe Ancient Town is a quiet archaic town, which is also called “Longquan Village”. It locates in the northwest of Lijiang, four kilometers away from Lijiang City. The Shuhe Ancient Town is also one of the earliest Naxi Nationality habitations and import market towns on the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road, which is a living specimen recording the Naxi Nationality’s transaction from the agriculture civilization to the commerce culture. The core protection area in the ancient town covers one square kilometer, including about 3,000 persons of over 1,000 families.

The “Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Route” starts from Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan Province, running through Dali, Lijiang, Diqing and finally gets to Tibet. The whole route passes subtropics , variable zone, cool temperature zone. The elevation rises from hundreds of meters to 8,000 meters. This is a colorful and wonderful tourist route. On the road, the Lijiang Ancient City is the only place listed as the World Cultural Heritage, indicating the phenomenal historical and cultural value of the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Route.

Shuhe, as an important component of the Lijiang Ancient City, has multi-cultural tourism resources including natural sceneries, ethnic customs and historical heritages, all of which are all complements and extensions of Lijiang. Especially, the water-drawing method and the distribution pattern are important information for researching. In Ming dynasty, the Shuhe Town has already been an important market town in Lijiang. It is surrounded by the hills on one side and waters on the other. Houses in the town are distributed in malalignment. There is a pond at the street corner, named "Jiudinglongtan” or “Spring”. Water from the pond flows sinuously. You could hear the water sound when you get close to. There is a small square street, which is 33 meters long and 27 meters wide. The square street could also be washed by the drawing water. It seems that the smooth-surface treaded by countless people and horses could still reflect the prosperous in the past.

For now, walking on the ancient streets in Shuhe could bring you fuller culture flavor. As the world cultural heritage, the ancient constructions are attracting tourists from all over the world. The Shuhe Ancient Town is 7 kilometers away from Lijiang and 3kilo meters away from the Baisha Town. Both Shuhe and Baisha are the original habitations of the Naxi Nationality and also the cradles of the governor Mus. You could feel the most archaic customs of the Naxi Nationality here.

Tips

According to the netizens, the most interesting way from Lijiang to Shuhe is riding bicycle. You could go to the west on a bike along the Fuhui Road (the location of the government), then turn right at the crossroad (with traffic signals) on the Shangri-la Road and go straight (dead against the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain). When you arrive the Bell Tower, turn left. After 250 meters’ straight riding, a street sign writing “Kaiwen, Ronghua, Longquan Temple” will be in your field of view, which is in front of the Longjiang Garden Hotel. Turn right there, after 4 kilometers, you could arrive the Shuhe Ancient Town.

If you like trekking, you could choose to take the publish bus Line 11 and get off at the second-to-last stop (don’t forget to ask the driver to remind you). Then after one-kilometer walking, you’ll arrive the entrance of the Shuhe Ancient Town. For more information, please contact the travel advisor.