14 Days in Yunnan

Ease in at about 1,890 m; the willow causeways and Yuantong Temple, a working Buddhist site with more than 1,200 years of history, both sit inside the central districts.

1. yunnan green lake park
2. yunnan yuantong temple

78 km southeast, about 90 minutes by car; the 2007 UNESCO karst pillars deserve a solid 3 hours before the evening back in Kunming.

1. yunnan stone forest

The fast train covers the leg in about 2 hours; the 69-metre Qianxun Pagoda and its two companions have stood on the Cangshan footslope for some 1,100 years.

1. yunnan dali old town
2. yunnan three pagodas

The lake sits at 1,972 m; loop roughly 20 km of the quiet west shore between Xizhou's Bai courtyard houses and the wetland boardwalks.

1. yunnan xizhou village
2. yunnan erhai lake

About 2 hours north by rail; the 800-year-old UNESCO old town pairs with the pool, where the snow peaks reflect on clear mornings.

1. yunnan lijiang old town
2. yunnan black dragon pool

The Glacier Park cableway tops out at 4,506 m beneath the 5,596 m summit; descend early and let the murals and lanes of Baisha village settle the altitude.

1. yunnan jade dragon snow mountain
2. yunnan baisha village

The Lijiang flight runs about 1 hour; spend the evening under the Jinma and Biji memorial arches at the heart of the old city.

1. yunnan jinma biji towers

The HSR ride south takes about 2 hours; Jianshui has some 1,200 years of history, and its Confucius temple, begun in 1285, covers about 7.6 hectares — among the largest in China.

1. yunnan jianshui old town
2. yunnan jianshui confucius temple

The 17-arch stone bridge runs about 148 m across the Lu River plain; the karst cave hosts tens of thousands of swiftlets from spring to early autumn — grilled Jianshui tofu finishes the day.

1. yunnan shuanglong bridge
2. yunnan swallow cave

About 3 hours of mountain road southeast into Honghe prefecture; the Bada viewpoint stacks thousands of mirror-like paddies for sunset, part of the 2013 UNESCO cultural landscape.

1. yunnan yuanyang terraces

Be at Duoyishu before first light, then walk the mushroom-house lanes of Azheke, a Hani village inside the World Heritage boundary.

1. yunnan azheke village
2. yunnan yuanyang terraces

Roughly 2 hours north; the yellow French-built station opened when the Yunnan–Vietnam railway reached the highlands in 1910, and South Lake is where the crossing-the-bridge noodle story is set.

1. yunnan bisezhai station
2. yunnan mengzi south lake

The HSR return takes about 2 hours; at Dounan, Asia's largest cut-flower market, wholesale roses are sold by the kilo into the evening.

1. yunnan dounan flower market

A slow last morning by the lake, then out via Changshui airport with its domestic and international connections.

1. yunnan green lake park