Shilin Stone forest

we drove for 4 hours to Shilin Stone Forest. This impressive collection of karst was formed over 270 million years ago, and became a UNESCO world heritage site in 2007 and covers an area of 300sq km. Before we entered the complex, the Driver took us into a local town where we had a refreshing clear soup of spring onion and mint, with egg fried rice, costing £1. Some local women had been to a pick your own strawberry place and gave us some. We brought far too much yuan as we had no idea food would be so cheap. Nobody in China uses cash as they all pay by phone as everything has a bar code.

The area was More like Stone Disney theme park. Lots of hotels, tat shops, rows of golf carts to take us in from the bus, plus long designated queuing areas like at at airport to enter via turnstiles. Thankfully not too busy as the Chinese guides all had loudspeakers to tell their groups stuff. They dressed in ethnic costumes, pretty headdresses with pearls and ribbons. At one spot there was a little group of male musicians and female dancers. The area was well manicured with grass and pretty plants and lovely blossoms, a lake with boat rides, and paved walkways around the kartz Stone pillars. From a. Viewpoint we could look down on it and get some more distant views. The guide was keen to show us shapes that were supposed to look like elephants, crocodiles, cats, mice etc. It must have been beautiful before it was made into a theme park, but I suppose as it is a major tourist attraction for thousands of Chinese it has to be organised with a one way system of walkways.

I had some nice pictures of it but preferred this one of the local women doing embroidery.

We had another 1.5 hours in the bus to Kunming where we have our last night, in a hotel wIth no building work going on. It would be good to get a decent sleep as we have a 24 hour extended day with 3 flights tomorrow till we get home.