GoKunming Forums

Looking for friendly hikers

GerryboGerrybo (4 posts) • 0

Hi We are new to Kunming and looking for someone to introduce us to the local hiking scene.

We like to hike with our dog, and are comfortable doing both day hakes and several day trips.

Peter99 (1246 posts) • 0

Maybe the local politbureau could apply some hiking ideas from Taipei. Just a short bus ride out of city, and hundreds of available hikes - pristine environment. Many wthout entrance fees, true 人民 attitude. All mapped and with informative signs too. Even on apps to download. Shouldnt be too complicated maybe. Would look great on a message board. And good for a healthy city environment - in harmony. Whoever came up with the idea of marathons, and bikes littering the streets, when Yunnan has 25% of Chinas flora.

We can see on old photographs, that there has been a lot of walks - and crowded pilgrimages during certain days - to the temples that were around Kunming in old days. Some of those temples dont exist anymore, and the generations old stories related to them all vanished, like the library of Alexandria.

John Gutmann has many wonderful old photos of Yunnan, and he is completely unknown today. One of his photos shows the trek pilgrimage to the Yanan Temple that used to exist outside Kunming before the Cultural Revolution. Ive always wondered whats the story related to that pilgrimage. It may be gone, forever. Probably it doesnt even blow in the wind anymore.

Heres some of the old photos of the hike (let me guess, you need a vpn):

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Peter99 (1246 posts) • +1

Nope.

Fahua is Anning, and when Yunnan was a buddhist kingdom, the Eastern capital now called Kunming, had that place as a holy mountain. Later the red guards demolished lots of the buddhas there, and maybe the old story was lost of Fahua significance already long ago. I think it was Kunmings "shibaoahan", i.e symbolic center of universe.

i tried to locate ruins to that temple i put in link, in the photograph many years ago, 2007. just a bikeride north kunming. saw the mountain but couldnt enter area bcs factories (cement etc) there.

its tiean, not yenan if i recall right now 铁俺寺 or similar. there was a bailongtan opposite it, sister to heilongtan, found on oldest french maps, (emily rocher) but its too gone long ago.

Kunming had a nickname "city of temples".

Peter99 (1246 posts) • 0

Recent post on exact location, and had not seen it until now.

www.sohu.com/a/195638991_99919216

So its on 长虫山, the fengshui cardinal point when Kunming was designed in Ming dynasty to symbolically look as as a (long life) turtle, by the most famous fengshui master in the whole world.

He also hid a stone tablet under Yunnanfu (Kunming) with the inscription 五百年后云南胜江南.

Which means he prophetized a Panthay rebellion 500 years in advance, hitting a bullseye with the prophecy.

Theres a story that a lone local historian tried to ask construction companies some ten+ years ago if anyone of them had stumbled on that tablet.

None. At least officially. Maybe its still under there somewhere, the old prophecy.

Peter99 (1246 posts) • 0

@ dolphin

Nope, not a friendly Yunnan hiker. Anymore. Used to be. Angry Yunnan hiker who quit.

But that being said, back to topic, hey come on, are there really not even hikes around Kunming.

May it speak for itself.

How about all the trees planted around Kunming, now many years ago, any progress. Or was it some stunt.

——-

....anyway, im gone. For a while at least, Useless ramblings. But the destruction of Yunnan pissed me off, yes. No fuckin con artist can fake that things d be good. Even if its on a thousand banners. Ciao, αντίο.

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