Baishuitai

On a shelf of hillside above the village of Baidi, spring water spreads across a broad white apron of stone and settles into tier after tier of shallow, scalloped pools. Baishuitai, the "White Water Terrace", is a travertine formation in the far north-west of Yunnan, and the comparison it most often draws is with Pamukkale in Turkey: a slope of mineral steps that looks like a frozen cascade, its basins holding water tinted pale blue against the cream-coloured rock.

The terraces lie on the northern flank of Haba Snow Mountain, near the upper valley of the Yangtze, at an altitude of roughly 2,400 metres. They are built by chemistry rather than by hand. Groundwater moving through limestone dissolves calcium carbonate; when the springs emerge and the water spreads out, loses carbon dioxide and evaporates, the carbonate comes out of solution and is laid down as travertine along the rims of the pools, raising them little by little. Chinese researchers comparing the site with Pamukkale and with Huanglong in Sichuan have noted that Baishuitai's water carries less dissolved carbonate and more algae, so its steps grow less tightly and are more vulnerable to wear. The main cascade measures roughly 140 by 160 metres.

Baishuitai is also a sacred place for the Naxi people. It is regarded as one of the holy sites of Dongba, the Naxi ritual tradition with its own pictographic script, and local tradition holds that the first Dongba teacher, travelling back from Tibet, was so taken with the white terraces that he stopped here and began to teach. The Naxi gather at the terraces each year on the eighth day of the second lunar month for songs and dances. In 1993 the site, listed as the Dongba heritage of Baishuitai, was placed among Yunnan's provincially protected cultural relics.

Getting there

Baishuitai is in Sanba Township of Shangri-La, Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan. The nearest town is Judian, about 44 km away, and Diqing Shangri-La Airport (DIG) is about 48 km in a straight line; the road from the city of Shangri-La is roughly 90 km of mountain driving.