The market is filled with things I’ve never seen before.

A dozen men and women, their tanned faces whittled by thin lines, sit hunched over wicker baskets brimming with strawberries the color of clouds, bright orange loquats impersonating fuzzless peaches, dried sausages called làròu, and wild mushrooms that bear more semblance to tree bark than fungi. Nearby, a police officer directs the traffic funneling into the small village—a novelty I’ve come to appreciate in the chaos of China.

Undoubtedly, though, the strangest things I see are the digital QR codes that each peddler has propped up next to his or her harvest. We’re nearly 200 miles away from the megacity of Chengdu and its 10 million inhabitants, in a village with limited electricity, and we’re supposed to pay with our mobile phones. It feels like I have one foot in the past and one in the future. As I marvel at the anachronism, a woman passes me a thimble cup decorated with red flowers and filled with a sun-colored liquid. Honey wine, curated from the more than 500 beehives tucked into the verdant mountains here.

This is Guanba. The Valley of the Panda.

Located in northern Sichuan province, in western China, Guanba is home to just 11 households, though there are more than a dozen villages and ethnic townships scattered throughout the surrounding countryside. They share this lush landscape with golden snub-nosed monkeys, tufted deer, golden pheasants, takins (picture giant, bison-like goats), and, most notably, six or seven wild panda bears. Dozens more pandas live in nearby bamboo forests, and the valley serves as a vital wildlife corridor connecting the nature reserves scattered throughout the Min mountains, part of the Hengduan range.