As a day trip from Kunming we went to see the famous Shilin Stone Forest. The Stone Forest is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is could almost be classed as pilgrimage site for the Chinese.
The stone forest is amazing and should definitely be visited by anybody who finds themselves in Yunnan Provence. Just be warned that it is a good idea to get there early as the number of Chinese tourists is larger than anywhere else we have been in China.
As for a description of what we saw, I think some photos would describe better than any words ever could.
The forest park has constructed paths winding through the rocks that are easy to get lost on. This is a good thing as we walked for a long time without tourist crowds and not quite knowing where we were. Occasionally you get signposts with arrows that say things like “elephant”, huh?
Well I’ll be damned, it was an elephant.
Eventually after going around and around, without actually hitting the same paths somehow, we started running into large tourist groups following their flag wielding leaders through the stone towers. We knew we must be getting close to civilization. Then suddenly we were in an open area with many local indigenous performers all dressed up and having a pretty good time.
The day was heating up and the tourist buses must have kept arriving so we decided it was time to head on out.
While we were up near the forest we visited a local market. I took a couple of quick snaps for you. We love markets, but today the stone forest took the cake, it was just breathtaking.
A Chinese butcher, without refrigeration at least you know its fresh (or the smell would tell you otherwise and they would not sell any meat).
The food highlight of the market, not for the first time either, was the peanut brittle.
After a long day we stopped in at the resturant below our hostel, which was called Big Pork Bone Hotpot Restaurant. Guess what we got? That’s right Big Pork Bone Hotpot. Very tasty, and very confusing, took us a while to work out what and how to order (and we still stuffed it up).
