The Silk Road may get all the glory, but there's another, lesser-known Chinese trade route that's no less interesting to explore. The "Tea-Horse Road"  once carried tea from China to Tibet, where the Chinese traded it for tough Tibetan horses. The original trail was incredibly difficult and rough, and yet Chinese tea porters made the journey with packs of tea on their backs that weighed more than they did.  National Geographic travel writer Mark Jenkins recently traveled what remains of the  Tea Horse road, and found some elderly Chinese porters who were willing to talk about their days hauling tea. The traditional tea porter song that they sang for him illustrates how hard the work was: Seven steps up, you have to rest. Eight steps down, you have to rest. Eleven steps flat,

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A favorite haunt of backpackers, hippies and other bohemian types, Dali is like China's answer to Goa, the "hippie mecca" of India. Centuries ago, this small city was the capital of the kingdom of the Bai, one of China's many ethnic minorities. They still live here today, and if you visit the shores of Lake Erhai on one side of the town, you can watch Bai fishermen catch fish the traditional way, with specially trained water birds called cormorants. However, these days the Bai are joined by a blend of young Chinese students, artists, musicians and hippified Westerners, all in Dali to chill out and enjoy the city's laid-back, artsy  vibe. On the Western side of the city, the Cangshan mountains provide a stunning backdrop and endless opportunities for exploration. According to the Guardia

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The Silk Road- the name brings to mind the slippery feel of silk fabric, the taste of spice, and the incense-like smell of opium smoke. For centuries, these goods and many others traveled the Silk Road, a series of routes connecting China with Europe, and the region of Xinjiang was at the heart of it all. Now, you can tour both Xinjiang itself and the surrounding desert. Dan Levin, a travel writer for the New York Times, did just that recently, staying in the city of Kashgar for a few days and then riding a camel through the forbidding Taklamakan desert. He writes: "Travelers who retrace the Silk Road in Xinjiang find that despite the flood of economic development, much of this remote province remains a world apart from China. In the towns and villages along this ancient trade rou

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Although China has hurled itself head-first into the 21st century, there are still pockets of the country where life hasn't changed much in hundreds of years. That means that your Chinese visa can take you through time as well as space-just include one or more of these 4 places on your itinerary: Qian Nian Yao Zhai Over 1,000 years old, Qian Nian Yao Zhai is the largest remaining enclave of the Yao minority group in China. The "Yao" are actually a collection of different but loosely related traditional cultures, usually characterized by colorful clothing and either red or black turbans. This village of 200 people offers a glimpse into what their lives were traditionally like before they began to disperse. (via Bootsnall) Tianluokeng Tianluokeng is a fortress-like village built

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