Published by Swiss James on 11 Sep 2008 at 11:41 am
The Stone Forest, on a tour guide
The second day of my trip to Yunnan was spent entirely with a Chinese tour group. I’d asked a colleague for some advice on fun places to see around Kunming and he suggested the “Stone Forest”- a collection of weird shaped rocks about 50 miles from the city centre.
He also said he’d arrange transport, which I thought was nice, it’s probably worth hiring a mini-bus for half the day instead of trying to get taxis. Later on the arrangement became clearer:
“Please be in reception at 7am- you will be meeting a team”
I should’ve known then what I was in for- the infamous Chinese Tour Group. Following a shouty tour guide who holds a flag and barks information seems to be a relaxing way to spend a day for your average middle-aged Chinese couple.
It’s not my bag, but I figured it was too late to back out now.
The day went:
07:10 Meet up with pasty-faced youth at hotel reception, get into mini bus
07:40 Arrive at random apartment block in the backstreets of Kunming, pick up 3 other people in mini bus
08:10 Arrive at urine-soaked car park near Kunming Railway station to transfer to a bigger bus with 25 other people. I could’ve been at the Stone Forest by now.
08:30 Bus sets off, tour guide runs through ear-splitting monologue in rapid Chinese. Try to listen to MP3 player to drown out the prattle but am nearly overwhelmed by fumes from leaky exhaust under my seat
09:14 Tour guide stops talking for 45 blessed seconds as we go past a traffic accident. A car has rammed head first into a steel barrier at full speed. Driver must have died. Other team members look impressed
09:50 Bus arrives at a gift shop selling Jade and silver jewelry- other team members fight to throw money at the salespeople, I look on bewildered.
10:40 Bus arrives at random temple built next to a handy car park. Whilst praying to a thousand hand Buddha you can take a stick and have your fortune read for 10RMB. I suspect the fortune reads “A fool and his money is easily parted”
11:30 Set off on bus, drive uphill away from civilisation, towards the Stone Forest.
11:43 Are those farmers still using Ox to pull their cart?
11:51 Was that old guy smoking Opium?
11:53 That lady was definitely trying to make her baby smoke a cigarette. Yunnan is weird.
12:30 Finally arrive at gates to Stone Forest, more than 5 hours after we set off. Go to lunch.
Touching the correct rock is very important
When we finally got into the forest it was interesting enough, some rocks that look like a Cat / Monkey / beutiful woman (if you look out of one eye and squint really hard).
There are various rocks to touch which stop your teeth falling out, “have many girlfriends”, or live until you’re one hundred years old (although good luck with that one if your mother made you smoke as a baby), and of course there were lots and lots of things to flash a V-sign in front of whilst having your photo taken.
Suckers at the temple
After the forest we went for a ‘free’ tea ceremony (where people tried to sell us tea), a ‘free’ foot massage (where people tried to sell us Chinese medicine), a ‘free’ cup of coffee (where people tried to sell us coffee, coconut powder, seasame pancakes, flowers, etc. etc.) before finally escaping from “the team” and catching a furtive taxi to the airport.
Our ethnic tour guide
Tour to the Stone Forest 160RMB
including all transport, entrance & guide to temple, entrance & guide to Stone Forest, lunch.
(And side trips to 18 gift shops )
yes, NEVER go with tourbus, they basically earn money from the commission of those companies that they take you to. and if you don’t buy they get pissed off… (but we didnt buy when we went with a private car to some tea place on the mountain) and the driver dropped us out and didnt want to take us back to the city.
Yeah pretty standard Chinese tour but it’s not always that bad. The guide we went with was fine if we bought or not, certainly not pushy and anyway, when you’re on holiday you want to spend some money to bring stuff back for friends so it was ok.
I’ve had the misfortune of attending a few of these tours, the people who organise them should be slowly grated and thrown into a vat of salt.
The Stone Forest was pretty cool…but if you’re on a tour presumably you’re constantly being chivvied along and don’t have time to just wonder around absorbing it…
here is really a fun place to see
^__________^
daeguowl- if you went without a tour guide how would you know which rocks to touch?
I think in fairness to the tour group way of travelling, entrance to the stone forest alone would have been 100RMB, so it is good value for money. The tea was much cheaper than in a supermarket too.
i’m surprised you missed out on a ‘close up’ of the shoes on the guy in the group pic./
Lonely Planet told me which rocks to touch… :)
ohmygosh, hilarious blog! I am going to Yunnan province in October…on a Chinese tour… oh gosh, I think I’m in for an adventure. Thanks for the fun read!
Hey, hilarious stuff! I have still not experienced the Chinese Tours -thing that my friends recommend with honest grin in their faces…:-D