 and climb more than one thousand steps of stairs. Anyway, these stairs should not be an obstacle for those with good physical fitness.
Stone Forest is around 90 minutes drive from Kunming city. We reached the ticket counter at around 11 am. The sky was cloudy in October. The cooling weather was just nice for an enjoyable stroll in the park.
The park is filled with uncountable natural limestone rising above the ground, spreading over an area of 400 km square, resembling a huge forest of stones. Actually, the whole area was once under the sea. It started to emerge and rise as a highland area due to the movement of earth's crust and upper mantle. The extensive erosion and weathering carved the limestone into a trunk-like pillars.
There are two major areas within Stone Forest- Major Stone Forest Scenic Area and Minor Stone Forest Scenic Area. We went through some part of the major scenic area by foot, and then toured around the minor scenic area by electric car (battery car). We stayed in the area for 2 hours 30 minutes. We left the site at around 1:30 pm for lunch before we continued our trip to Jiuxiang Scenic Area.
We would recommend to spend more time at the major scenic area, as we could see more interesting stones there. The scenic areas in Stone Forest is far away from ticketing counter. Thus paying RMB 25 for the electric car transit service is really necessary. Detail of entrance fees for Stone Forest are available at Travelchinaguide.com.
The ticketing area is nicely decorated.
From the ticketing area (upper left), we have to walk around 200 meters to the electric car shuttle station (upper right). The ride took around 5 minutes to the entrance of the Stone Forest (lower right). There were many visitors using the shuttle service.
Stone Forest is an UNESCO heritage site.
Karst at the major scenic area.
The major scenic area is beautiful with the combination of natural and man-made landscapes.
The words "林后" (pronoun as lin-hou), was calligraphed by Yun Long- a general who once ruled Yunnan from 1927 to 1945.
There are several beautiful lakes in this area as well. This lake is called Lotus Lake, with a stone resembles lotus flower erects at the middle of the lake.
Although most of the foliage are still green, some have turned yellowish in October.
There are many other interesting stones around the scenic area. One of them is called eagle stone. Anyway, it looks more like a dinosaur than an eagle to us.
Some of the area were full with visitors.
We took our lunch at a restaurant nearby Stone Forest Scenic Area. Then, we continued our trip to Jiuxiang Scenic Area.
Jiuxiang Scenic Area is located 50 kms north of Stone Forest Scenic Area. From Stone Forest, we took about 1 hour drive to reach the scenic area. Unlike Stone Forest, where the limestone erected from ground, the limestone at Jiuxiang formed caves and tunnels deep into the ground.
We have to descend 53 meters straight down into the Grand Underground Valley with elevator. Then we need to walk for around 1 km along the valley before entering the cave, which leads us to Grand Lion Hall. Food, beverages, and resting area are available there. The path turns challenging from Grand Lion Hall. First, we have to go a long way down the stairs to Twin Waterfall. Then, we have to climb up and down through Fairy Field. Finally, we have to climb around 300 steps to go back to the surface.
Although the cave is filled with cooling air, high humidity and a lot of walking will cause the whole underground trip sweaty and sticky. Thus, we would recommend to go light with sportswear. We could get some refreshment and restore our energy at Grand Lion Cave. We stayed at the site for 2 hours. Detail of entrance fees for Jiuxiang are available at Travelchinaguide.com.
The entrance to Jiuxiang cave system. We can see the water gushing into the Grand Underground Valley (left to right).
We walked through Grand Underground Valley. The valley is around 1 km long, leading us right to the entrance of the cave.
Grand Lion Cave is named after this stone.
Grand Lion Cave is huge, with a small exhibition on the discovery of early human settlement in the cave.
Twin Waterfall in the cave. This was the filming site for the movie "Myth" by Jackie Chan.
The underground terrace from above at Fairy Fields.
The terrace from another angle.
The terrace from below.
We started to climb back to the surface via Bat Cave.
It would be a disaster if we have to walk back to the car park from another end of the cave. Luckily, cable car service was provided to bring us back to the entrance point.
Nice view from the cable car.
We returned to Kunming for dinner and stayed overnight at Xin Sheng Da Hong Sheng Hotel (鑫盛达宏晟酒店). We started our long journey to Dali early the next morning.
Video: CNN debunks Obama madrassa story; Update: Olby slams Insight … despite having used it as a source himself
posted at 7:20 pm on January 22, 2007 by Allahpundit
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They sent a reporter to the school in Indonesia to confirm that it’s not a madrassa. Then they interviewed one of his classmates, who said it’s pretty much the same now as it was when they were enrolled. Not ironclad proof, but given how dubious the story was to begin with, pretty convincing.
Insight’s sticking by it, though:…
The New Media—including Insight—is surging forward in readership, influence and clout (that’s why our story was picked up byFOX News?
Read it all. “Kurtz” is Howard Kurtz, WaPo’s media critic, who went off on Insight in his column this morning (and whom Insight accuses of having made only a pro forma attempt to contact them before his piece ran). He shows up here, too, to provide background on the story; fast forward to 3:30 if you’re only interested in the part about the school.
They sure moved fast to shoot this down, didn’t they?
Update: Our pal John Gibson wasn’t impressed with CNN’s debunking. Johnny Dollar has audio.
Update: There’s no hypocrisy our friend the Olbermoron isn’t capable of. Johnny Dollar catches him laying into Insight tonight to the delight of his 11 viewers — even though he’s been happy to cite them as a credible media outlet in the past when they’ve written stories unfavorable is … Why didn’t Obama just debunk it himself? Perhaps he can’t?
darwin on January 22, 2007 at 7:24 PM
Was he a Muslim or not? We might care more about the political nature of the Islam strain in which he was raised, but Muslims around the world are going to care that he was at one time a Muslim and then left the faith. It won’t be pretty for him to say “I am not now and have never been a member of the Muslim faith,” but short of that it’s not clear that he wasn’t.
Alex K on January 22, 2007 at 7:25 PM
You mean Hilary’s little oppo drop tanked?
Topsecretk9 on January 22, 2007 at 7:29 PM
And, adding to Alex K’s point, the question remains- can a Muslim really convert? Or, rather, if a Muslim converts can they be trusted? It’s been said that it is ok, per Islam, to lie to infidels to achieve a goal against them. This question, while sure to ruffle feathers, does need to be addressed.
NTWR on January 22, 2007 at 7:29 PM
Looks like the MSM are ditching Witchy-poo for Big Ears.
uptight on January 22, 2007 at 7:31 PM
A Marine is always a Marine, no such thing as an ex-Marine. Semper Fi baby. So the question begs, what about Muslims? Is there a saying for them too? Semper Fi, always faithful. Anyone know Arabic for “always hateful”..oh I know, it’s just so un PC……….
Maybe “Temper Hi”…….
ritethinker on January 22, 2007 at 7:32 PM
The one thing that is popping up for me is that he has two autobigraphies out.
Isn’t that, at the very least, a bit vain? How many junior politicians pump out two before he actually has a track record?
Like I said, it kind of was a bit of a red-flag for me.
bbz123 on January 22, 2007 at 7:33 PM
look, the word madrassa, which is pronounced phonetically like this, mud-ruh-sa means school in arabic… today, however because of islamic fundamentalist jihadist terrorist militancy, madrassa now means fundamentalist, jihadist terrorist indoctrination center… back in Obama’s time it just meant school, but not up until the late 80’s to early 90’s did that start to change in the arab world… let’s try to keep this in context and perspective shall we… i’m a conservative first and foremost and ideologically party notwithstanding, but i believe that the truth is more important and