40 Best Sights in Southwestern China, China

Discovered in 1531, Unicorn Cave was used as a prison for the two Nationalist generals, Yang Hucheng and Chang Xueliang, who were accused of collaborating with the Communists when Chiang Kai-shek was captured at Xi'an in 1937. The cave is known for its unicorn-shape stalactite and used to host a nunnery.

This small but fascinating museum highlights the region's cultural and biological diversity. Exhibits include one in which villagers were given cameras to document their daily lives. Another compares photos taken in the 1920s with those taken more recently. The museum is funded by the Nature Conservancy.

Wase has a popular area market featuring Bai clothing. The town is on the opposite side of the lake from Dali and can be reached by car or boat. Wase also has some inexpensive places to stay if you want to spend the night in a lake village.

The nearest large town in the area, Menglun, is the location of China's largest botanical garden. With a gorgeous setting on a peninsula in the Luosuo River, the garden holds more than 13,000 tropical and subtropical plant species and a section of dense, unspoiled tropical rain forest. A museum tells about the local flora and fauna, as well as the humans that have inhabited the region. Families enjoy the humid and fragrant air of the tropics, picnicking in pavilions, and observing rare plants and animals. Visits can take anywhere from a few hours to an entire day (there are restaurants and places to stay overnight). Electric buses help you explore, and hop-on, hop-off tickets are available for Y100.

Buses only run until 6 pm, so start at the eastern park and make your way back toward the entrance.

Menglun is about 60 km (37 miles) east of Jinghong, a trip that takes about 90 minutes by bus. Or you can take a cab.

With a well-designed layout, this is one of China's finest gardens, and an interesting place to spend several hours among fragrant frangipani, massive lily pads, drooping jackfruit, and thousands of other colorful and peculiar plants. Don't walk through too fast, or you'll miss out on some of the more unique plants, such as tiaowu cao, or "dancing grass," which actually stands up if you sing at it. Each plant's placard features English and Latin names.

Among the prettiest towns in the area is Xizhou, about 20 km (12 miles) north of Dali. It has managed to preserve a fair amount of its Bai architecture. The daily morning market and occasional festivals of traditional music attract a fair number of tourists from Dali. Minibuses leave from Dali's west gate and cost Y7.

In the center of town, Yangshuo Park is where older people come to play chess while children scamper about in small playgrounds. The park has a number of statues and ponds worth seeing, and Yangshuo Park Peak has a small pagoda offering excellent views of the surrounding town. For a more intense climb with even better views, ascend the television tower across the street from the park's entrance.

Once one of the starting points of the ancient tea and horses trade route to Tibet, this village has an Old Town featuring the houses of the "tea lords" of yesteryear. The Old Town is hidden away behind the school on a hill and makes for very pleasant investigation for an hour or two. Yiwu's higher altitude also means that it's a great way to get away from the Jinghong heat. All around the area are tea plantations you can stroll in. Several buses to Yiwu leave from Jinghong daily.

The largest temple in the city, Yuantong Temple dates back some 1,200 years to the Tang Dynasty. The compound consists of a series of gates leading to the inner temple, which is surrounded by a pond brimming with fish and turtles. The chanting of worshippers in the serene environment makes it hard to believe you're in the middle of a big city. In the back of the compound a temple houses a statue of Sakyamuni (the Buddha), a gift from the king of Thailand.

The museum focuses primarily on the Dian Kingdom, which ruled much of Yunnan from 1000 BC to 1 BC. Most of what you'll see here is more than 2,000 years old. Exhibits have good English captions.