14 Days in Wenshan

Rail in via Puzhehei station, running since December 2016, about an hour and a half from Kunming; punt among the lake clusters, then climb Qinglong hill over a landscape locals count at 300-odd peaks, 80-odd caves and 50-odd lakes.

1. wenshan puzhehei lakes
2. wenshan qinglong hill

The Miao hamlet behind the hill where the hit drama set its fox-realm scenes in the 2016 filming, a 20-minute walk from the lookout, and the torch-and-moon caves at the waterline nearby.

1. wenshan caihuaqing village
2. wenshan puzhehei caves

The Sani (Yi) lakeside village of whitewashed fronts and fire-pit dinners — a slow day of wooden boats, village dogs and lotus-stem snacks bought off the quay.

1. wenshan xianrendong village

The reed-boardwalk wetland where the park's swans are flown at set hours and the peak country reflects whole — go early for still water.

1. wenshan puzhehei swan lake

Down the line to Guangnan and in by boat — about a kilometre of dark water cave between you and the rice-paddy village that styles itself the Peach Blossom Spring.

1. wenshan bamei village

Southeast of Guangnan, the valley whose glutinous grain went to tribute tables for centuries, with the three-tiered falls of Sanla in the same green basin.

1. wenshan babao rice town
2. wenshan sanla waterfall

In the county seat, the Qing-era yamen of the Nong clan, counted among the largest surviving Zhuang tusi compounds, in a town whose Han-court records raised a Gouding ruler to kingship in the first century BC.

1. wenshan guangnan tusi compound

A town day — market streets, the county's rice-noodle breakfasts and a slow afternoon before the road runs pick up again.

1. wenshan guangnan tusi compound

Labelled honestly, an out-of-prefecture day — two-odd hours by road west into Honghe prefecture for Mengzi's old customs quarter, a treaty port from 1889, and the town that claims the crossing-the-bridge rice-noodle recipe.

1. wenshan honghe mengzi old town

Back in Wenshan city, the prefecture capital that grows the bulk of China's notoginseng root — trading halls of dug-and-dried roots, then an evening boardwalk on the Panlong.

1. wenshan sanqi market
2. wenshan panlong river

West of Qiubei county town, the reservoir the locals call Bailong — island clusters and quiet boat landings half an hour or so from the Puzhehei crowds.

1. wenshan bailong lake

A day on the lake roads by bicycle, working between villages at lotus-row pace — flat enough for a lazy cadence, with the peaks always in the corner of the eye.

1. wenshan puzhehei bike loop

A cross-province day, labelled as such — three hours or so east into Guangxi for Baise and the blue reservoir water of Chengbi Lake, with the river-side old streets as the evening walk.

1. wenshan baise chengbi lake

A market breakfast by the river, then the rail west from Wenshan or the flight out of the prefecture airport, named Puzhehei though it sits in Yanshan county.

1. wenshan panlong river