Kunming Stone Forest - Sunday 27th November

JT- Today’s excursion was to the Stone Forest, a 1.5 hour bus ride out of town; a fairly uninteresting route, but the further out of Kunming we went, the more signs there were of former times – a few old tiled low-rise dwellings and now-defunct terraced rice paddies.  The Attraction itself was heaving with people – and we were there over Sunday lunch time, a sacred family eating ritual in HK, and indeed it got even busier as we left around 2pm.  And we were the only gweilos in sight – the rest were visiting Chinese from all over the country, all thoroughly enjoying themselves, smiling, friendly, dressed to the nines, looking healthy and happy –  a far cry from the average western theme park visitors these days!
Our park guide – dutifully dressed in the Yi/Sani cultural dress, somewhat spoiled by a thick down anorak on top! – was excellent and soon realised we were a “get away from the crowd” troupe and duly led us into the boondocks, making us all the more grateful for his services, as we did manage to find the bus again! Then I’ll let the photos describe the amazing limestone castes that stretched for miles:

An “imaginal stone” – in this case an elephant Finishing off with a nice cuppa!