Kunming - 7/16

Today we drove to the Stone Forest, a large karst formation of rock pillars. Our guide (Fiona-- Bing Fen in Chinese) led us to an area far  from the crowds as found in other locations. We wandered up and down among the rocks and along a natural pool and it was all pretty spectacular. One of the Chinese minority groups, the Yi, are from this area and were found throughout the park, leading tours, selling handicrafts and performing in traditional dress. As we neared the end of our walk, we came upon a group of grandmothers (you can tell by the headdress) having lunch.  Fiona struck up a conversation and the next thing we knew, they were sharing their repast with us.

Lynn at the Stone Forest

The forecast had been for rain all week, and we were pleased that it was wrong...we got back to the bus just in time to stay dry for the ride back. Traffic in the city was awful because of aggressive subway construction, so it was dry again by the time we got to the markets.

Many of the old style buildings are being replaced (a blessing of sorts in the case of Mao-era apartments), but some were pretty nifty, tho in need of work. One dilapidated but interesting looking building housed an herbal pharmacy. It looked older than the ones in Chinatown, but otherwise was very much the same. 

The building on the right houses a pharmacy.

The market area looked like others we have seen, except it had a pet area...  puppies, bunnies, mice, hamsters, many birds.... all seemed familiar til we got to the dark brown squirrels,  chipmunks, eensy crabs, and snakes. We verified these were pets, not lunch, but were mystified by the big beetles. Fiona said they were put into bottles of alcohol to make a snake bite antidote.

Then we were off to walk around Green Lake, a beautiful park with lots of lotus, some of which were blooming.  We also encountered local music groups. After a leisurely amble, we went to dinner and a cultural performance featuring 8 of the 25 minorities in this province. The music was more tonal than most Chinese music, but repetitious.  The dances and drumming were very well done, but the highlight was a dancer of  exceptional grace who ended the show with a peacock dance. There was also a young girl, maybe 4-5 years old who totally stole the show when she was on.

The peacock dancer