10 Days in Chuxiong

The prefecture museum sets out Yi history and bronze drums; the old Confucian temple stands a few streets east; Yiren Ancient Town, built in the mid-2000s, fills with food stalls and dance in the evening — the Torch Festival falls on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month.

1. chuxiong museum
2. chuxiong confucius temple
3. chuxiong yiren ancient town

The calendar park marks the traditional ten-month year of 36-day months; twenty kilometres northwest, Zixi's pine forest sits around 2,500 m with old camellias and hillside temple halls.

1. chuxiong solar calendar park
2. chuxiong zixi mountain

An hour east at Lufeng, the park opened in 2008 around an in-situ hall where Early Jurassic skeletons some 180 million years old still lie in the rock; the walkways and museum wing take most of a day.

1. chuxiong world dinosaur valley

A deep valley town in Lufeng, often called a thousand-year salt town — Ming and Qing merchant houses line the Longchuan river, with the old salt wells and the Wu family courtyard open to visitors.

1. chuxiong heijing ancient town

Two hours north to Yuanmou County, where two fossil teeth found in 1965 at Shangnabang defined Yuanmou Man, dated to about 1.7 million years; sleep in Yuanmou town.

1. chuxiong yuanmou man site
2. chuxiong yuanmou museum

Clay towers eroded into castles and columns at the Wumao and Langbapu sites, an hour's drive apart; late light gives them their colour, and the road southeast puts Wuding county town about 1.5 hours on.

1. chuxiong yuanmou tulin

The ridge above Wuding carries the Zhengxu temple courts, where tradition says a Ming emperor found refuge in the early 1400s, and a spring display of thousands of peony plants; back to Chuxiong by evening.

1. chuxiong wuding lion mountain

Two hours northwest to Dayao County, where the Shiyang salt-well town keeps a temple to Confucius with an early-18th-century bronze statue about 2.3 metres tall; the old well lanes and stele yards fill a slow day.

1. chuxiong shiyang ancient town

An honestly labelled neighbouring-prefecture day — the rail link opened in July 2018 puts Dali about an hour west; the walled old town and the shores of Erhai Lake fill the day, with the evening train back to Chuxiong.

1. chuxiong dali ancient town

The second honest neighbour day — the Stone Forest in Kunming-administered Shilin County is karst pillars sculpted over some 270 million years, listed by UNESCO in 2007; return by evening rail to Chuxiong or continue on to Kunming for onward connections.

1. chuxiong kunming shilin