Photographer Page

Paul Salopek

Then and now: Li Jin Hua, a cultural guide, shows off the interior of Joseph Rock’s house, preserved as a museum in a village on the outskirts of Lijiang, in Yunnan.

Sustainability expert Angela Yanfang Cun, a member of the ethnic Naxi minority, helps local communities protect Tea Horse Road landscapes from increasing impacts of tourism.

As a boy, Wang Chengsheng drove yak trains along Tea Horse Road pathways in southwestern Sichuan—until paved highways killed the trade in the 1970s. “People got excited when the caravans arrived,” Wang recalls. “They brought many good things.”

One of history’s great land explorers, yet little known outside his country, the scholar Xu Xiake was said to have traversed thousands of miles on foot through 17th-century China. He was a frequent wanderer of the Tea Horse Road.

Walking partners Zhang Hongyi (who "contains the energy of a supernova") and Zhang Qing Hua hike the mountain passes to Lugu Lake, in Yunnan. The region is crisscrossed by caravan trails with a legacy more than 2,000 years old.

For apple pickers in Yunnan, there's no need to step away for a snack.

China is known as the factory of the world, but for many villagers tucked away in the mountains of Yunnan, hands—not machines—define life.

Friends invite Salopek to a wedding in Islamabad, Pakistan, on condition that he wear a shalwar kameez, the traditional male garb.

Yang Wendou looks back at the Gaoligong mountains, where new plants are discovered every year.

The device in the foreground of this abandoned village on the edge of the Gaoligong mountains is an insect trap. A generational migration to cities has emptied out many villages in China.