白沙古镇

This guide to Baisha in Lijiang traces how a local herbalist known as Doctor Ho turned his roadside clinic into a fixture of guidebooks on this stretch of China, greeting foreign travelers with cups of his so-called Happy Tea and stories of Naxi herbal medicine in fluent English learned from the botanist Joseph Rock. You'll hear how a chance encounter with the travel writer Bruce Chatwin in nineteen eighty-six, and later a visit from the BBC's Michael Palin, sent word of him spreading among backpackers hunting him down before they had even asked a question. Look for the thank-you notes papering his clinic walls in dozens of languages.