Slideshows

March in Kunming is cherry flower time and there is no better place for taking a snap than Kunming Zoo on top of Yuantongshan.

Big, bold and boisterous: once a year the Huadeng Festival 花灯节 turns sleepy Mizhi密祉 into a giant carnival.

In honour of Tsongkhapa, the monk whose teachings are the foundation of the Gelugpa School of Buddhism, masked dances are performed in front of Zhamei Temple in Yongning at the beginning of winter.

Huadeng is a form of Yunnan Opera: musical plays most often performed during the spring festival. Midu county, south of Dali, is one of the centers of this art form and its recognition as intangible heritage has led to increased interest and innovation in recent years. The photos here are from the Midu Huadeng Festival Week in October 2012.

The Dragon King Temple 龙王庙 on the shore of Cibi Lake hosts the largest temple fair in Eryuan county every year at the beginning of autumn.

The Huayao Yi in Shiping are some of the best dressers in the province. Here they are seen at the Longpeng Mushroom Festival.

The Benzhu is the protective spirit of Bai villages and in the Dali area every village has at least one Benzhu shrine. In Heyijiang, south of Xizhou, the Benzhu has its special day on the full-moon day in lunar June.

Every year, on the fifth of the fifth lunar month, when the rest of China celebrates Duanwujie or Dragon Boat Festival, are the horse races in Zhondian.

Backstage at the dress rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony of the Horse Races in Zhongdian, sorry Shangri-La.

Bingzhongluo, at the northern end of Yunnan's stretch of the Nujiang, remains a charming backwater wedged between the snow mountains of Gaoligongshan and Biluoshan.

Dozens of churches, thousands of Christians: Christianity in the Nujiang valley is an unlikely, but thriving, survivor of European missionary work. Over the Holy Week Lisu, Tibetan and Nu Christians gather at their churches for services strangely familiar, yet decidedly unique.

The Nu people in northern Nujiang celebrate the arrival of spring with worship at a small cave near Bingzhongluo where they collect water dripping down from the stalactites.