14 Days in Yuxi

Start on the west shore at Luchong, where villagers still haul the lake's endemic kanglang fish with waterwheels and cliff-side holes; the depth numbers — about 158.9 m at the deepest, some 20.6 billion cubic meters held — belong to this same basin.

1. yuxi luchong scenic area
2. yuxi fuxian lake

At Maotianshan, geologist Hou Xianguang cracked open a slab in 1984 and found a 518-million-year-old Cambrian marine world — more than 280 species now cataloged. The UNESCO listing came in 2012, and the modern museum below the hill lays out the whole story.

1. yuxi chengjiang fossil site
2. yuxi chengjiang fossil museum

The Lijiashan museum on the hill above Jiangchuan explains the bronze-burial culture unearthed here from 1972 — the famous ox-and-tiger table altar came out of these tombs — and Xingyun Lake, connected to Fuxian by a short canal, closes the afternoon.

1. yuxi lijashan bronze museum
2. yuxi xingyun lake

South to Tonghai, where Xiushan's temple courtyards stack up the hillside under cypresses said to date to the Song dynasty, and the county town keeps one of Yunnan's larger Confucian temples, founded in the Yuan era. The hill's plaques have earned it the tag "a sea of boards and couplets".

1. yuxi xiushan
2. yuxi tonghai confucian temple

A short ride from Tonghai sits Xingmeng, Yunnan's Mongol township — descendants of thirteenth-century Yuan garrison families whose kitchens, costumes and reed-pipe tunes kept a northern thread alive through seven centuries of southern life. The township's cooking schools run honest half-day classes.

1. yuxi xingmeng mongol village

East of Tonghai, the Wanyao village of Huaning county has fired glazed pottery since the Ming dynasty — green-glazed jars still climb the dragon kilns, and workshops let visitors throw a pot between firings. Back toward the lakeshore for the night.

1. yuxi huaning pottery village

About two and a half hours west to Xinping county, where the Ailao range climbs toward 3,100-meter peaks. The Shimen gorge funnels a river between slab walls, and the Nanen waterfall drops in stepped curtains — overnight in the river town of Gasa.

1. yuxi ailao shimen gorge
2. yuxi nanen waterfall

The Longxi manor above Gasa is a Republican-era fortified estate of the local Tusi line, its courtyards pinned against the mountain; below, the Gasa market street belongs to the Flower-Waist Dai, whose narrow tube skirts turn market day into a color study. Back over the hills to Yuxi for the night.

1. yuxi longxi manor
2. yuxi gasa town

The west shore's Mingxing caves are the old engineering of the kanglang fishery — lakeside grottoes fitted with waterwheel spindles that drew the fish in on the current. A slow lakeside day, swimming coves and a sunset over the deepest water in the region.

1. yuxi mingxing fish caves
2. yuxi fuxian lake

Honestly labeled — Kunming, not Yuxi, and the provincial capital has its own pages on this site. About half an hour north by HSR on the China-Laos Railway, open since December 2021: Green Lake's teahouse circuit and the Yunnan museum's bronzes fill a long day. Return by evening.

1. kunming green lake
2. kunming yunnan national museum

Another honest outside day — Jianshui, west in Honghe prefecture, an hour or so by rail, and it has its own pages on this site. The Confucian temple compound, the Zhu family garden's maze of courtyards and the double-dragon bridge make a full circuit; return to Yuxi by evening.

1. jianshui ancient town
2. jianshui zhu family garden

Composer Nie Er (1912-1935), who wrote China's national anthem in 1935 and died that year in Japan at 23, came from a Yuxi family — the residence, the music square and Hongta Hill above town form a factual circuit through the leafy center.

1. yuxi nieer former residence
2. yuxi nieer music square
3. yuxi hongta

The city museum rounds off the fortnight's themes — fossils, bronzes, tobacco-town history and the Nie Er archives — and the afternoon belongs to the markets, where the mushroom stalls alone change with the week's rains.

1. yuxi city museum
2. yuxi city markets

A last early drive to the lake for the flat morning light, one more bowl of crossing-the-bridge noodles on the way back, then the train north to Kunming — the airport connections run off its stations.

1. yuxi fuxian lake
2. yuxi city markets