[2025 Honghe County Attraction] Travel Guide for Dongmen Caravan Ancient City (Updated Jul)

👍🏻Recommended Reason: Everyone, you must visit Yisa Ancient Town! It's a crucial point on the southern Yunnan section of the Tea Horse Road, built on the backs of horses, and a blend of Chinese and Western architecture and caravan culture. It's also not overly commercialized, super niche, and free from bustling crowds, allowing you to enjoy a unique tranquility, as if isolated from the world. Its former inhabitants managed various international businesses under the Caravan Association, with trade connections spanning Southeast Asia and even five continents, making it one of Yunnan's three major overseas Chinese hometowns, with a rich history! 🗺Attraction Introduction: Yisa Ancient Town is located within Honghe County, Yunnan. The town is small and can be explored in about an hour. It features courtyard houses with a mixed Chinese-European style, now a museum. The yellow stone walls resemble Southern European architecture, combined with Chinese roofs, perfectly echoing the traditional caravan culture, making for fantastic photos! 🚗Transportation: It's 270 km from Kunming, and buses are available from Jianshui County and Yuanjiang County. Simply navigate to "Yisa East Gate Caravan Ancient Town" in Yunnan. 🗺Tour Route: The ancient town is small, so feel free to stroll around. First, visit the museum with its mixed Chinese-European architecture and experience its unique charm. Then, explore the streets for traces of caravan culture. You can leisurely explore the entire town in an hour. 🍱Food Recommendations: You must try the local snack, grilled tofu, all you can eat for 6 yuan per person. Around the ancient town, locals also recommend stir-fries and barbecue, all within walking distance. Highly recommend the tamarind juice at Baimi Barbecue; it's absolutely amazing! 💰Expenses: There's no entrance fee for the ancient town, parking is convenient and free. Grilled tofu is 6 yuan per person, all you can eat, and other food prices are also very affordable, making it an inexpensive trip overall. 📌Other Tips: Many people know about the culturally rich Jianshui, the blessed Mile, and the tin capital Gejiu in Honghe Prefecture, but often overlook Honghe County. Although it shares its name with the prefecture, it's not the prefecture's seat. When you visit, be sure to experience this underrated gem of a town.

The Yaochu Courtyard in Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture was the residence of the Yao family, a wealthy merchant family in southern Yunnan during the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. Their financial bureau was a unique financial system built on the foundation of caravan trade. At the end of the 19th century, the Yao family rose to prominence by relying on the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and border trade between China and Vietnam. They used a caravan network to transport goods such as tin from Gejiu and Pu'er tea to Southeast Asia, forming a cross-regional commercial chain. The core of the Yaochu Courtyard's financial bureau was a financing model of "goods in place of silver." Before the caravan set off, the caravan leader could obtain goods as principal from the courtyard based on their credit. After selling out the goods, they would return the principal and 30% of the profit. At the same time, a "risk-sharing fund" was established, with each caravan contributing 5% of its profits to a common fund used to compensate for unexpected losses and ensure the continuity of trade. In addition, the Yao family innovated a "tin-tea exchange" system. Merchants in Vietnam could exchange their tin mining proceeds for tea vouchers issued by the courtyard. These vouchers could be used to pick up goods in Yunnan tea plantations, achieving cross-border settlement. This system reached its peak between 1910 and 1937, with a circulation network covering 18 counties in Yunnan, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam, and an average annual turnover of over 200,000 taels of silver. After the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was interrupted in 1938, the financial bureau disintegrated along with the decline of caravan trade. However, its risk-sharing mechanism and cross-border settlement model are still considered typical examples of private finance in modern Yunnan.

Mabang Ancient City, located on the ridge of Dongmen Street, Yisa Town, Honghe County, Yunnan Province, was built in the 1940s. The ancient architectural complex includes Dongmen Tower, Yao Chujiben Residence, Yao Chujiben Backyard, Qian Er Guan Residence, Qian Er Guan Attached Building, and 3 private residences. Yao Chujiben Residence was built in 1944, specially designed by the French, it is a three-story building with a combination of Chinese and Western styles. It faces east to west, connected to Dongmen Tower, with tile roofs and brick walls, the exterior is square fortress-like, with defensive shooting holes, the architectural layout is staggered, solid and steady. Qian Er Guan's brick arch courtyard is built like a maze, with a total of 8 courtyards, 44 rooms, and 188 doors and windows. The structure is like a maze, the main architectural features have the architectural style of the Central Plains at that time, and also the charm of Jiangnan architecture. From the 1850s to the 1940s, nearly a hundred years of history, the horse teams formed by Yisa people went abroad and did the tea, salt and tobacco business to Southeast Asia, with footprints all over Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar. By the end of the Republic of China, the Yunnan Tobacco Gang rose, and the Yisa people took the opportunity to expand the horse team organization, with strong soldiers and horses, drinking horses in the Mekong River, crossing the Li Xian River, and traveling back and forth between China and Southeast Asian countries all year round. In order to expand and strengthen the business, many people lived abroad and did business locally. After many years of 'going down the dam' and 'walking the tobacco gang', the businessmen of Yisa made a fortune and invested in building houses. The houses they built included both Chinese and Western style houses and European style brick and wood structures. In Yisa, people call the wives of those who go abroad for business with horses 'Mabang Hongyan'. Men go abroad for business with the horse team, some of them disappear without a trace, some die in foreign lands, some stay in foreign countries, marry and have children and live abroad. The Mabang Hongyan used their weak shoulders to support helpless families, with 'three-inch golden lotus' shouldering the burden of the family, respecting their parents-in-law, raising children and managing the household. On May 22, 2018, 104-year-old Grandma Sun passed away. Grandma Sun, whose name was Qu Lanqiao, was a long-lived elderly person in Yisa Town, Honghe, and the last 'Mabang Hongyan'. 📍Detailed address: Mabang Ancient City: 48 Dongmen Street, Honghe County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province Ticket: Free admission