Archive for the ‘Travel Planning’ Category
Besides being home to 1,300 million people, China is also famous worldwide for hosting monuments and landscapes. From its architecture and traditional culture, concerning the exotic travelers seeking both to monuments like the Great Wall . Today we enter one of the most picturesque environments, proving that nature sometimes impossible shapes constructed in arbitrary procedure.
This is the Shilin Stone Forest, a set of karst formations of stalagmites as a measuring meters. And although its quantity in the photographs is not very high, this curious site extends for 350 km2 divided into seven zones. Some of them have been declared World Heritage by UNESCO.
According to legend, this forest is the birthplace of Ashima, a beautiful young woman from the Yi ethnic group. After forbidding to marry the man she loved, she became a rock that still stands up and takes name. In his honor is held every 24 days instead of the sixth month the Festival of Lights, a celebration dances and wrestling competitions.
But beyond the romantic explanations about the creation of these formations – or some of them-the reason for his appearance seems due to wear that water has been produced on the limestone over the centuries. The result is stunning.
The downside to a visit to the Shilin Stone Forest is that tourism has become a Port Adventure guided tours, the viewpoints and cameras. The only surviving natural place, oriental-style garden are stones. Of course if they did not follow up, forget it. On any given day hordes of tourists walk the forest paths. Most are Chinese who are protected from the sun with colorful umbrellas or hats. So beautiful in the world this place has a lot, but it is wild and unexplored very little. However, it’s worth seeing on a trip to the Asian giant, so it is recommended to do a very first morning, before the arrival of the organized tours.
The Forest of Shilin is found in Yunnan province (120 km from Kunming, capital of the same), in southeastern China. Is relatively close to the border with Laos and Vietnam. The official website of the forest, China Stone Forest , you will find all kinds of additional information to prepare your visit.