frauke at large

Couldn’t come to Kunming without having seen the ‘Stone Forest’.

Shilin (Stone Forest) has apparently been know as the ‘First Wonder of the World’ since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.). It’s about 120 km outside of Kunming and after having successfully managed to arrange a driver to take us there and back (after much negotiation, pointing, signally and a very useful map in our photocopied pages of the our guide book) we finally got there about 2 hours later. The drive took for ever, as our driver quite obviously was not familiar with the route and had to pick up a mate on the way to set him off in the right direction. It’s all part of the Chinese tourist experience. Had lunch in a small restaurant on a street leading to the entrance of Shilin – next to us bus loads of Chinese tourist arriving, rushing into souvenir shops, taking the essential smily picture in front of the entrance sign and the neatly following the nice lady with the microphone and the flag, identifying your group and therefore your route through the maze of ancient carved stone.

 

 

 

 

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