Nijiao Travel Guide

The road west of Nijiao leads eventually to the north-south corridor running from Lufu to Kaiyuan, following the Nanpan river for part of the way.
However, before that the road starts to drop from the flat upland heights at Nijiao. After just a few kilometres, the world plummets away to the south, into vast valleys. The villages are so far below that even with binoculars, it is difficult to make out houses and people.
The road hugs the very top of a ridge, and at times there are 200 metre drops on each side of the road. Villages can be seen clinging to the slopes on the valley to the north.
Over the last 12km, the road descends through 1000 metres (that's 3000 feet) to the town of Jiangbian. This was one amazing ride!

In the market place, there were a lot of stalls selling local Miao and some Buyi and Zhuang clothing. Also for sale was a lot of the basic materials that are used by local people to make the clothes: sequins, buttons, string, pieces of cloth (including indigo-dyed material).

My favourite though was a nail.....just one nail, from the nail-maker!

Favorite thing: This link is to a good general topographical map of the area around Nijiao.
Nijiao is actually in the wrong place, and lies on the main east-west main road.
(Interestingly many places in eastern Yunnan seem to be offset north or south by about 5km in this GIS database)