Dali , nestling in the arms of the Diancang Mountain 400 kliometres west of Kunming, is linked to the outside world by airlines and expressways. The weather there is mild and it is spring all the year round. Dali is known all over the world for its graceful scenes and sights. "The green in all four seasons", says another. The Cangshan Mountain and the Erhai lake are perhaps the most fascinating of all the sceneries in the city.

Ancient City of Dali Nestling in the arms of the statuesque Cangshan Mountain, and skirted by a wall eight metres in height and 3.5 kilomtres in circumference, the 600-year-600-year-old city of Dail was first biilt in 1683, the 15th year of the Hongwu reign of the ming Dynasty. Featuring stone walls, grey-tiled roofs, doors and windows carved with dragon and phoenix patterns, and gardens of varying sizes, the dwellings of Dail evince an air of classic sanctity. The entire is covered by a maze of streams, fed by runoffs from the Cangshan Mountain. Hence saying, The gurdling of water can be heard in every house, and flowers are planted in every family.

Three Pagodas of Chongshen Monastery At the foot of the Zhonghe Peakof the Cangshan Mountain just one kilometre to the northwest of the city's venerated history. The tallest of the trio, which is 69.13 metres tall, was built in 836 AD, andthe two smaller ones were built during a late period. No visit to Dail is complete witha call at these three pagodas.

Butterfly Spring Sequestered at the foot of the Yunlong Peak of the Cangshan Mountain, the Butterfly spring is actually a pool four metres deep and 20 square metres wide. The gnarling boughs of an ancient silk tree stretch over its surface. In the fourthlunar month every year, the tree puts out butterfly-shaped flowers, and swarms of butterflies in twenty or so breeds descend on the tree ,linking themselves head against tail into numerouscoloured ribbon-like strings which keep dangling over the pool. For this annual congredationof butterfiles, the silk tree and the Butterfly Spring have become a major tourist attraction of the Cangshan Mountain.

Cangshan Mountain Also called "Diancang", the Cangshan Mountain thrusts up in the fashion of a huge screen wall inn the west part of dail. Malong, the main peak, soars 4,122 metres into the sky under a snow mantle that never thaws. Down the vales,streams flow with a rich susurrus; up the slopes, the blue sky is obscured by the dense foliage of clumps of ancient trees; atop the peaks, lakes sparkle like so many mirrors.With its vast collection of plants and trees, the Cangshan Mountain is also a veritable botanical garden.

Erhai Lake In the shape of aner, meaning aer in chinese, the east of dail covers 250 square kilometres at an elevation of 1,980 metres with water a storage capacity of 300,00 cubic metres. Its vast pool of water, shining under the sun like a sheet of vivid green, and the snow mantles of from a breath-taking sight known poetically as Silver Cangshan and Jade-like Erha.

Erhai ParkAlso known as Tuanshan Mountain, the Erhai Park covers an area of more than 15,000mu. The Mountain slopes are cocooned in luxuriant pines and cypresses and grass, and embroidered with clusters of camellias, azaleas, primrose, and exotic trees and flowers which can be found only in and around Dail. The pavilions, chambers and corridors atop the Tuanshan Mountion provides an all-encompassing view of the Cangshan Mountain,shimmering on the horizon like an immense screen, the Erhai Lake, its vast expanse of liquid silver strewn with white city of Dail and its trio of pagodas, which are faintly visible in the distance. it is, indeed, an ideal place to marvel at the famous scene titled Silvery Cangshan Mountain and jade-like erhai Lake.

Yunnan Ethnic Villages Situated six kilometres south of Kunming, the Yunnan Ethnic Villages is a 2,000-mu affair bordering on the south by the Dianchi Lake and on the west by the famous Western Mountains Scenic Area. The famous historical and cultural city of Kunming is in the north of the villages. Each of the 26 ethnic peoples of Yunnan will have a village built on the premises, and there will also be a square symbolizing unity among various ethnic groups, a theatre for the performance of ethnic songs and dances, a folklore museum, and a museum of ethnic waxworks. When completed, the Yunnan Ethnic Villages will become an epitome of Yunnan as a multi-ethnic province, and an immense garden in south Chinese horticultural and landscaping traditions.

20,000-Flower Camellia Tree The Yufeng Temple 13 kilometres north of the city of Lijiang is home to a world-famous camellia tree which, despite its short stature of three metres, is more than 500 years old. During its spring-autumn flowering season, the tree puts forth a total of 20,000 flowers in 20-odd batches. The largest of the flowers has registered a diameter of seven inches with nine pistils and 18 petals.Hence the nickname,"Global King of Camellia".During its flowering season it is always mobbed by admirers from all over the world.

Baishui Tableland One of the largest spring-water catchment tablelands of China, the three-square-kilometre Baishui Tableland lies snugly in the natural contours of a mountain slope 2,380 metres above sea level in Baidi Village, Sanba Township, 101 kilometres southeast of the seat of Zhongdian County. The varigated karst landform of the tableland is an outcome of the continuous piling up of tosc(calcitesediments),resultiong from the solarized disintegration of calcium bicarbonate contained in the water.

Lushilin Forest Park The Lushilin Forest Park at Mengcang Town, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, is a national nature reserve as well as a first-class tourist resort at the provincial level. lt is a showcase of tropical and monsoon rain forests. The line,"While the ground is covered with dense forests, underground there lies a vast stretch of stone forests", gives perfect expression to the uniqueness of the park. Plants of a thousand and one postures have struck out of clefts and cracks in barren monoliths, and all sorts of rattans and vines are entangled to form such curious valleys are everywhere. Waterfalls cascade down the cliffs to feed a maze of ribbon-like brooks and rivers, where people can cruise down the mountains to the Luosuo River aboard a bamboo raft provided by local Dai villagers. Variety shows of folk sings and dances are staged on a daily basis in the park, where not a month passes without a folk festival being celebrared in pomp and throng.

Dragon King's Palace at Anshun The Dragon King's Palace is actually atypical karst cave at Longtan Village in Anshun's Matou Township. Thename,however,is not unearned, for the scenery inside the cave is as gorgeous as a mythological palace. A 3,000-metre-long corridor has been tunneled into this underground labyrinth, and a 800-metre-long stretch of it has been opened, conducting the visitor to such sceneries as the Heavenly Pond, the"palace"on board a boat is like journeying into a celestial world,with the silhouettes of exotic rocks quivering invitingly in the water, and the river sways and gleams in an otherworldly fashion. The"palace", whick is a national tourist resort, consists of a series of"halls" with a diversity of sights and scenes. So unusual is this natural phenomenon that the Dragon King's Palace is extolled as a "Wonder of the Asia-Pacific Region.

Zigong Dinosaur Museum Hundreds of fossils dinosaurs and  accompanying species have been found in an area of 2,800 square metres at Dashanpu 11 kilometres from downtown Zigong. The fossils, entangled in thick piles, indicate that in time immemorial the place was a natural cave inhabited by a herd of dinosaurs. On display in the high and spacious hall of the in-situ Zigong Dinosaur Museun are a number of reconstructed bone frames of dinosaurs, one of which stands as tall as ten metres, and fossils of palaeovertebrates. Yibin sitting astride the confluence of the Jinsha, Minjiang and Yangtze rivers, is reputed as"number one city along the 10,000-/i Yangtze". The well-known South Sichuan Bamboo Sea is located on the shared border of Yibin's two counties, Jiang'an and Changning. The rich tourist resources of Yibin also include suspended coffins of the ancient Bo tribespeole in Gongxian County,and the Sea of Rocks and Land of Caves in Xingwen County, where stone forests and underground limestone caves mingle with the world's largest dolines to form a most fascinating scene.

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