Yanjing Salt Ponds

On route from Deqen to Markham, just passed the Eastern Tibet Boarder gate, we encountered the stunning Yanjing Salt Ponds. Some 5 km of dusty winding road took us down the escarpment of the Mekong River to Lower Yanjing Town.  With little expectation we passed the last curve where we were met with a stunning view of the Mekong River and cliffs lined with some 3000 evaporation ponds. These evaporation ponds are lined with clay and erected on top of wooden stilt platforms. Simon, Conny, Horst and I debated for some time as to the source of the salt and surmised that rather than the originating from the waters of the Mekong the salt must have leached from a source feeding into the Mekong.  Well it turns out we were not far from the truth.

The Yanjing salt ponds are the only place in the world where salt is collected from river brine, whilst all the other salt comes from either from sea or lake brine. Farmers collect water from the salt wells in wooden barrels carried on their backs. These are emptied into salt ponds and left there to allow the brine to concentrate. The brine is then poured onto salt ponds where the water is evaporated by a combination of hot sun and wind.  Depending on the aspect of the ponds, wind and sun it can take up to 5 days for the salt crystals to form. We also learnt that the wells on one side of the Mekong produce white salt crystals while the other side produces pink crystals, the pink being the more valuable.

The Nasi People, who continue to farm salt as they have for hundreds of years on the banks of the Mekong, are indeed wise people. They realized that the combination of wind and sun were critical to their salt production capacity. With this in mind they built the ponds in a large bend of the Mekong with steep cliffs funneling the wind to maximize evaporation.

Although we did not venture into the small village we were able to sample the local salt from the “saltcicles” that formed under the evaporation ponds. To this day we still have a small quantity of salt that we sprinkle over those occasional dishes that benefit from a salt dusting. With the stunning contrasts of the barren red cliffs, bright blue skys, patchworks of green fields and the dark brown of the Mekong we departed for the open roads once again.