Pianma pass, Yunnan-Burma border 片马丫口

After visiting Bingzhongluo in the Nujiang valley we took a side trip over to the Burmese border near Liuku (much further south). This involved taking a private van over the epic dirt road that rises up to almost 4000 metres from the Nujiang. Here is a picture of the actual pass. During WW2, Allied cargo planes doing The Hump route from India to Kunming would fly over this section of the Gaoligong mountains and the pass itself was occupied by a Japanese outpost. Some of the structures in this photo may be the Japanese fortifications. The pass is often closed in winter, and as you can see even here it is snowy despite Liuku below being almost subtropical. Pianma itself is a dull frontier post that has little to linger for except a reconstructed C47 plane and a "Resist The British Imperialists" monument (the Brits tried to claim the Burmese border all the way up to the ridge of the Gaoliging mountains but here Chinese territory actually extends down into the western side of the mountains).