these are the limestones tat u'll see along the way to Jiuxiang (九香)
Entrance of the Jiuxiang (九香) park
This old man was smoking a water pipe
anyway today we'll be visiting the Jiuxiang (九香) where we'll be taking a short boat ride in the gorge and following that we'll be walking into the caves to view the limestone formations.
Dad waving from the boat. we're going to cruise down the river in the gorge
The gorge
The tour guide told us that Jackie Chan filmed a couple of his movies here... coz he was very fascinated with the scenery. I can't really remember what were the films that were being filmed there.
and i tell u the walk in the caves was really really long.... and a couple of aunties thought that their legs would not be able to take the long hike, they decided to take sedan chairs. hahaha... interesting... but its a form of earning money for the Yi zhu (彝族) people.
Mum and the 2 aunties who took the sedan rides
the pictures taken in the caves didn't really turn out very nice coz it was a little dark in the caves. it was quite a distance from our hotel in Kunming to Jiuxiang. as we were nearing Yiliang region (where the Jiuxiang caves are), the vegetation and scenery also changed. That is when u look out the windows of the coach, on both sides of the expressway, u'll see lots of limstone structures/rocks formation sticking out of grass pastures. This place is also where the famous Shilin is. But we will not be visiting Shilin in our trip as that venue was not covered. The major ethnic group living in Yiliang county (宜良县) is the Yi zhu (彝族) people.
I must say that the caves was really very majestic.... hmmm why i would say this is because.... the caves was really huge. and there were juz so many stalactites and stalagmites. also i saw 1 of the largest limestone terraces. its almost similar to the one i saw in lijiang and turkey. but this one is pretty well kept. but the waters in the terraces was cold... unlike the ones in Turkey, which was warm.
Entering the caves
Mini waterfalls in the caves
these are the terraces that i'm talking about
Mum & dad posing for pictures in the caves
after finishing walking the caves (by the way, you can only walk in 1 direction), we reached the other end of the cave. To return to the entrance where we started, will require us to walk the 3.7km... and i think this maybe too much for the old folks. At the so-called exit, we took a cable-car ride back to where we started. and this is not your normal cable car... its somewhat similar to those sort of cable cars you'll find at ski resorts. Yeah... the passengers are not enclose in a 'box'. this was a pretty awesome ride. But may not be nice for people who are afraid of heights. but this allows passengers to breath in the fresh air, take wonderful pictures. but one thing was... it was extremely hot. the sun rays were all beating down on us.
this is the cable car that I'm talking about. u get to enjoy the nature... hee hee...
Butterfly hard at work
A dam i saw on our way to lunch
when we got off at the entrance, it was time for lunch. we went to a well known restaurant for lunch. and lunch for today is the guo qiao mi xian, which my family already tried it on our 1st day in Kunming. the Guo Qiao Mi Xian here is not as good as compared to the one that we had previously. But this restaurant served some pretty interesting appertizers. Often in chinese restaurants the appertizers would be steamed peanuts. But for this restaurant the appertizers served was fried silk worms and bee pupae. Hahahaha... interesting!!!
of course i tried! how can i not try such interesting food... people who know me well, know that in my trips i would try at least 1 so-called 'exotic' food that the locals eat but when s'poreans hear it... they will cringe or shudder....
At the restaurant waiting for lunch to be served
I must say that they tasted pretty ok. quite like french fries... hahaha... nothing weird nor smelly... juz french fries taste. and heard that eating such bugs, provides super high proteins!
hahahaha... so the next time u need eggs and u run out of them... perhaps u can try eating some bugs??? =P
The restaurant that we had our lunch had a pretty interesting setting... sort of like mongolian sort of houses. hahaha... perhaps because the Yi people are pretty closely related to Mongolians... pity i did not managed to capture a picture of the bugs... otherwise i could have uploaded them here... anyway juz head there and try it out for yourself. =D
after the interesting lunch, we visited Qicai Yunnan Park (七彩云南公园). hahaha... sounds very nice... but its quite nice lah... i mean the scenery. if u count man-made scenery as scenery. anyway this park rear quite a number of peacocks. that's why its called Qicai.
Entrance of 七彩云南公园
Other than the caged up peacocks, there's nothing much in the park.
A peacock spreading his tail
Man-made water in the park
After this, we visited a silk making factory. hmmm... its the 2nd time for me to visit a silk making factory. the 1st time was when we visit Beijing. anyway the things there are super expensive... i think a couple of the aunties and uncles bought some products there. Otherwise.... we juz walk around and see and touch the silk. hahaha...after all these walking around seeing not very nice things as compared to the past few days... we went to a place where the so-called chinese physicians were trying to sell us their herbal products and bao fu ling ( a sort of cream that can heal burts, piles etc) and we also get to have a foot massage by some TCM students.
me and mum with some 'go yo' at our temples receiving foot massage
after all these..... its dinner time! hahaha... seems like today we juz keep eating and walking huh... but tonight's dinner is susposedly fit for the king and 1 of the most expensive and a must-try when u're in Yunnan. we're having mushroom steamboat! hahaha.... unique isn't it?? yeah... the steamboat really is made of a lot different kinds of mushrooms i've ever seen in my entire life... hahaha...and this steamboat was really nice.
after the sumptuous dinner, we headed back to our hotel... and since it was still early.... we went to the shopping district nearby to walk around before calling it a day.
tomorrow will be our last day in Yunnan then its back to singapore. =D
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