The Tea Horse Caravan Road of Southwest China is less well known

than the famous Silk Road. Its route crosses some very high and

dangerous terrain. It begins from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in

Southwest China, runs along the eastern foothills of the Hengduan

Mountains, a center of tea production in China, then crosses the

Hengduan mountain range and deep canyons of several major rivers,

the Yalong, the Jinsha (the upper reaches of Yangtze), the Lancang

(Mekong), and the Nu (Salween), thus spanning the two highest

plateaus of China (Qinghai-Tibet and Yunnan-Guizhou) before finallv

reaching India south of the Himalayas.

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The name of the road (Chamadao in the Chinese records meaning the

tea and horse road) indicates its importance in the trade of tea and

horses, but other products passed along it as well. Horse caravans

carried tea, sugar and salt from Sichuan and Yunnan to Tibet and

brought back colorful local mountain goods. The Chinese over the

ages often bought warhorses from Tibetan and other ethnic groups of

Southwest China, and these too came over this road. The road also

served as a significant corridor for migration as well as a channel for

cultural communication among the ethnic groups in western China:

beyond this, it was a bridge for international cultural and economic

exchange between China and India. Although silk was not included in

the trade goods carried over it, at times it has been termed the

Southern Silk Road of China, due to its importance in both economic

and cultural aspects of Chinese history.

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The Tea Horse Road One of them starts at the original place of the

famous Pu'er tea production (today Xishuangbanna and Simao

prefectures of Yunnan) and passes through Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian,

Deqin in Yunnan and Mangkang, Zuogong [Zogong], Bangda, Chamdo,

Luolongzong, Gongbujiangda and Lhasa in Tibet. From Lhasa it heads

south through Jiangze [Gyantse], Pali, and Yadong in Tibet and on to

Burma, Nepal and India.

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Today, although the Tea Horse Road is no longer used as a trade route,

we can still see the evidences of many years of cultural exchange and

prosperity. Visitors will find the regions of the Tea Horse Road to be

incredibly rich, diverse and full of natural beauty.