A motorbike journey goes behind the scenes of Yunnan’s tourism industry
我横穿云南和四川两省，只为寻找游客们心目中“原汁原味”的香格里拉
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MADS VESTERAGER NIELSEN
“Can I get a helmet with this?” I ask the owner in a small courtyard shop in downtown Dali, the picturesque city in China’s southwestern Yunnan province known as a hip backpacker destination. It’s also a gateway for exploring the mountainous borderlands between northern Yunnan and southern Sichuan province, on which I’d agreed to escort a Thailand-based tour operator called Aleks Konge by motorbike, acting as his fixer and interpreter in the summer of 2019.
Potted plants dot the walls of this compound, which is built in the traditional architectural style of the Naxi people in Yunnan. There are also several old motorbikes, including the one that Mr. Konge and I have just taken off the owner’s hands. “Here is one for you,” the owner says, handing me a sky-blue helmet worn by drivers from take-out delivery platform Ele.me. I am not sure what people will make of this on the road, I think to myself, but I put it on anyway.
“You can get this for free,” he says, “just don’t tell anybody where you got this motorbike from.” Secondhand motorcycles are illegal in many parts of the Chinese countryside and obviously this man does not want any of his remaining bikes confiscated.
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