China Travel Forum

[canter]

My girlfriend and I will be arriving in Kunming a few days before her 30th birthday. Can anyone suggest anything really nice that we could do/see in the area that I could surprise her with?

[aynor]

The Western Hills are nice on a clear, sunny day. Take the cable car up (40y up / 30y down) & walk down from Dragon gate lookout. The Bamboo Temple is also good. Some people dislike the Stone Forest due to the 80 yuan entry fee & crowds of Chineses domestic tourists. I went mid week, & found it okay. In Kunming itself, Caihua park (Vegetable Park) has 1000's of tulips & seagulls midwinter. Not sure about midsummer. There is a Dikos fast food place outside.
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china tour

[jame]

To tour ,Despite it being China tour line, there's a park up in the hills directly west of town that never has anyone in it, if you get my drift
To clarify, it's not south-west, at the 'Western Hills', but directly west -- near the Bamboo Temple. It's a bit hard to find but if you get a map and a taxi here's the instructions:
- find on the map the point to the west of town where a smallish, roughly north-south road crosses the railway that runs north-south along the western edge of town.
- after crossing the railway the road snakes up the hills (southward slightly).
- after a short climb, there's few hundred metres where it runs west, then turns south again as it crosses a gully.
- There's a road off to the right here that ascends the gully.
- Go up here, until the well on the left, behind which there's a couple of buildings (a temple?) and just ten metres up the road a set of stairs ascends the mountainside. Go up the stairs, you will come to the park entry.
There's a whole lot of Yunnan squirrels in there, plenty of birds, weird concrete mushrooms, and all sorts of things. It's a GREAT antidote to China and a nice romantic setting
Enjoy!