Exploring Yunnan, China: Stone Forest

The Stone Forest (Shilin in Mandarin) is a popular tourist attraction located a short distance away from Kunming. The place is famous for its various limestone rock formations. To make your visit more fun, use your imagination to visualise what the rocks resemble. The Stone Forest scenic area is huge so take your pick of which area you would like to visit. For us, we explored the Greater & Lesser Stone Forests (大、小石林) areas.

Due to the uniqueness of this scenic area, it has been categorised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. To get around the area, you can buy an additional ticket for the internal buggy as the place is huge and it would take time to explore by foot.

When visiting the area, do look out for the Ashima rock. In the local Yi tribe custom, a female is called Ashima. The story goes that she was forbidden to marry the person she loved, hence turning into the rock. Near the Ashima rock, there are many stalls where you can pay a small sum to try on the local tribal costume and take photos. Note that along the way, there are local photographers who will take your pics. Don't bother arguing with them about privacy and what-nots as that is the custom there. When leaving the Stone Forest, they will catch up to you and try to sell you the photos taken earlier. You can then decide whether to purchase those photos.