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Anhua Ancient Tea-horse Road


The Ancient Tea-horse Road is located in north of Daxiong Mountain, Anhua County of Yiyang City.It is about 150 km away from Yiyang downtown area. This ancient commercial passage has long been dubbed as the last caravan road and the best-preserved remnant of ancient tea-horse road in south China. It is a scenic spot which integrates both natural landscape and historical culture.

Besides its picturesque location, the scenic spot has also been highly appreciated for its cultural and historic value. Visitors can not only experience the joy of horse riding, but also trace the cultural relics of the caravan. Surrounded with verdant trees, clear water, high mountains and deep valleys, the scenic area is characterized by mightiness, uniqueness and elegance. 

The places of historic interest, workshops, classic exhibition hall, religious buildings, folk customs and resorts make tourists want to stay longer.

Yongxi Bridge
This is the best-preserved wooden lounge bridge in Anhua County. The bridge is 83 meters long, 13 meters high, and 4.2 meters wide, with 4 stone blocks and 34 wooden bridge pavilions. It is key unit for cultural relics protection in the county. It was built during the reign of Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty. 
The scenic spot is equipped with tourist service center, sightseeing bus, direct drinking water, natural gas, broadband network, satellite television, floodlighting and automated parking lot. Favorable accommodation facilities are also offered here in characteristic guest rooms, diversified resort hotels, high-level business clubs and theme culture hotels.
Dongshi Ancient Village

This village was lined with shops and stores during its ancient days of prosperity. It used to be a center of trade and business, where merchants gathered. Over more than 1,000 years, the traditional buildings are still well preserved. A long flagstone street extends in the town. The native residents live peacefully in their old houses, just like their ancestors did long time ago. Strolling on the street, you can have an original taste of ancient town and enjoy its serenity.
Guanshan Canyon

Guanshan Valley is located in the Ancient Tea-horse Road Scenic Spot in Anhua  County. It is one kilometer long, ten meters wide, and hundred meters wide. 

It has been an ideal destination for outdoor adventure and rock climbing. It is famous for  its grandeur, grotesqueness, precipice and quietness, as well as a large number of rapid  flows and waterfalls. Giant stones of various colors and shapes scattered in the streams  would make tourists linger on without the thought of going home. On the tops of valley stand precipitous peaks and rocks of grotesque form. Trees of thousands of years rise straight up  on the cliff like waving swords. Clear streams zigzag with gentle sound as if they are  telling their deep affection for the great valley. The ponds of various colors in the middle  of the streams are extremely attractive, no second to other famous valleys in China

Today, although the Tea-horse Road is no longer active as a trade route, it still keeps primitive folk custom alive, with abundance of unique natural scenery far away from the bustling city.

The Ancient Tea-horse Road plays an important role in the trade of dark tea between Hunan and border areas in ancient China (such as Tibet , Sinkiang). Anhua, dominated by sub-tropical monsoon climate, exhibits superb natural conditions for tea plantation.It has been noted as the major producers of tea in China and especially famed for dark tea, a kind of fermented tea or caffeine-free tea.People in the border areas liked drinking dark tea for centuries because they ate high-calories food such as yak butter, beef and lamb but consumed very little vegetables which are a big restriction there.

Dark tea not only helped them digest the heavy food, but also offered vitamins needed. Thus, those who could manage to transfer the dark tea from Anhua to border areas were going to make good money. The irresistible temptation of making huge profit encouraged horse caravans to make their way through cleverly and yet dangerously. If the mountains could not be climbed they went around them on the mountainsides; and by following the rivers, they availed themselves of narrow riverbanks under the cliffs. In continuous and collective efforts for decades, trading links were set up. 

As the hometown of Dark Tea, Anhua has conserved in good conditions historical relics of the Ancient Tea-horse Road . Strolling on the ancient road on horse, one will be greeted by time-honored footmarks of the horse caravans.

 

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