Kunming- The Stone Forest

Our excursion to the Stone Forest. Chen arrived with our driver and her burgundy minivan. We headed off to the Forest, about 120km SE of Kunming. We passed hundreds of street vendors selling “duck dinners”. Their offering consisted of anywhere from 2-20 ducks hanging from their necks, skinned and ready to roast.
We made a stop on the road and when we tried to get going again, the van wouldn’t start. Our driver, a constantly smiling, non-English speaking Chinese woman, proceeded to crank the starter over and over again. The problem was obviously an ignition system failure and John pleaded with her to stop cranking the engine. He finally convinced her to push it to the closest on-street mechanic (some guy working on a truck). He took off the distributor cap and she got back into the car and, with a maniacal smile, continued to try to start the engine- with the distributor cap off. John was beside himself, imagining us stuck in the middle of no-where with a burnt out starter engine. With the help of the local mechanic, we finally go it started and proceeded to the Stone Forest.

The sight was a huge collection of gray limestone pillars, split by rain, water and eroded to forms (which, of course, the Chinese have named- “Moon Gazing Rhino”, “Everlasting Fungus”). It was basically an over-rated Chinese tourist attraction filled with 1000’s of Chinese tour groups following guides dressed in minority clothing donning yellow flags. It had the feeling of a tacky tourist sight in Florida or the Wisconsin Dells. We ventured to the viewing platform, fought our way up with the other Chinese tourists and called it quits.