Day 31-32 (Nai Gu Shilin)

Arrived in Shilin town along with 20 other tour busses, all packed with camera happy Chinese tourists getting ready to follow a flag bearing guide around for just long enough to grab a few pics and then get crammed back onto their busses to the next location...needless to say I didn't stick around...3 hours hiking to the North and I was in farm country. Within minutes I began to see groups of Limestone forests, most about the size of a small city block, each completely individual, some with pine forests growing between them, some with smaller sections forming huge natural mazes (second picture).

Some of these columns reached approximately 30m in height, they varied from the thin breakable kind to collosal towers. Each one of these stone forests were within a kilometer of each other but what made this area even better was the fact that other than the occassional farmer, there was no-one else here. I ended up camping under a pine tree between two huge columns.

The following day was a hike back to Shilin to catch a bus to kunming.