Day 30: Kunming and Stone Forest

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I think I messed up the day numbers in the past two posts... oh well. Day 30 we were in the stone forest.

We took a city bus from Dali (ancient town) to Dali City (xinguan? i think), and then another bus from Dali city to kunming. The first bus was only 20 minutes or so, but it was packed so we had to stand with our bags on the whole time. The second bus was 4 hours, comfy, but kind of expensive (98 yuan). Our bus from lijiang to dali was only 35 yuan and it took 3 hours. Anyway we got to kunming after dark and took a taxi to the Cloudland hostel, for which we'd made a reservation. I was a little worried about getting in so late, but it all worked out in the end, and it is a nice place to stay.

Our main interest in kunming was to see the stone forest. We had read that there is an express train to the stone forest that leaves at 8:30 am every day, so we got up at 6:30 so that we could eat breakfast, take bus 64 to the train station, and catch the train. It didn't work out quite as planned, though. The cloudland hostel didn't start making breakfast until 7:45, so we missed breakfast. We made it to the train station, but I went in the wrong building to buy tickets - it turned out we were on a bus, not a train. The bus leaves every 10 or 20 minutes for the stone forest, so we could've slept in, eaten breakfast, and we would have been fine. Oh well.

As the bus approached the stone forest, the landscape begins to be dotted with rocks, and then pillars of rocks. The stone forest park itself seems to be the epicenter of the stone peaks, which are known as "karst" formations. I like to use the word karst a lot but I still don't know what it means.

The stone forest admission fee was a whopping 140 yuan - much higher than the 50 yuan that the lonely planet reported. We'd already made it that far so we paid the admission and went in. We are both glad we did.

At first we walked to the closest "attraction" was sooo crowded we chinese tourist groups that we made a beeline into the heart of the park. It didn't take long before we were alone on the paths. The stone forest really is amazing - just look at some pictures, it is hard to describe in words. The paths were pretty crazy, as they had to obey the rules of the stone forest. sometimes there were stairs going up and over peaks, other times you would be crouching and going under peaks, or you'd have to walk around them. I was totally turned around soon after we left the crowds.

My favorite part was when we accidentally found our way to the top of one of the peaks, via a very sketchy pathway. You could tell it was meant for people to climb up, but you'd never find a path that dangerous in america. No handrails or wheelchair ramps here. the view from the top was awesome - the forest looks much different when looking down on it than when looking up at it.

So stone forest = thumbs up. Kunming = meh.

I'm glad we booked our train out of kunming when we got there. It didn't leave until 6 pm the day after the stone forest, so we had a little bit of time to explore the city before we left. It is a typical crowded chinese city, except we found very little to make us wish we had more time there. Maybe we were just in the wrong part of town. We did walk by Green lake park, which was nice, but we had no regrets as we left for the train to Guilin.

Here's some pictures of the stone forest, as always there are more on flickr at

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[Kari]

Karst
A karst is an area of irregular limestone in which erosion has produced fissures, sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns. Karst topography usually forms in regions of plentiful rainfall where bedrock consists of carbonate-rich rock, such as limestone, gypsum, or dolomite, that is easily dissolved. Surface streams are usually absent from karst topography. A karst landscape has sinkholes, sinking streams, caves, and springs. Geologists have adopted karst as the term for all such terrain.