preface

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, since I went to Chengdu in late January, I have basically no place to go further. The impact of the epidemic is two-sided. On the one hand, it restricts everyone's travel and contact, and on the other hand, it also promotes the rapid development of informatization in a very short period of time.

The schedule to Kunming this time was very tight. I arrived in Kunming in the afternoon of the first day, and subsequent meetings and discussions took up afternoon and evening time. The only time I could squeeze out was a few hours before boarding the plane the next afternoon. Since the decision on this trip was very hasty, no preparations were made. I just spent a while looking at the destination strategies on Ctrip.

Kunming is located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Affected by the warm and humid air currents in the southwest of the Indian Ocean, Kunming has a mild climate. The annual temperature is between 0 and 29 degrees. It is like spring all year round. It is called the "Spring City" and the city with the smallest annual temperature difference in the country. The center of Kunming City is about 1891 meters away. I basically don't feel altitude sickness. I just feel a little breathless when I climb the high overpass with a heavy computer bag on my back. However, the ultraviolet rays here are indeed more harmful than those in Jiangnan areas, and the sun is more dazzling. No sun protection measures have been taken, making the skin hot.

Talk about the high-speed rail on the Shanghai-Kunming Line

Before writing specifically about my trip to Kunming, I would like to talk about the high-speed rail on the Shanghai-Kunming line. The first stop on the trip was Guiyang. I didn't expect that the Harmony High-speed Railway would only take 2 hours from Guiyang to Kunming. You should know that the terrain here is completely different from the Beijing-Shanghai line that I often travel to. On the Beijing-Shanghai line, North China is a plain and the Jiangnan area is a hilly area; on the Shanghai-Kunming line, since Jiangxi, there are many mountainous areas, especially Guizhou, with a karst landform, and people are called "no land is three feet flat." The straight-line distance from Guiyang to Kunming is more than 500 kilometers. Before the opening of the high-speed railway, it took 7 hours to take an ordinary express train, and if you are in a hurry, you need to take a plane. So here we must praise China's high-speed rail, which makes the distance between cities shorter and shorter, makes people's travel more and more convenient, and makes people's happiness stronger and stronger!

dianchi

Check into a hotel on Hubin Road by Dianchi Lake. The sunrise is late in the western region. I get up at 7 a.m., but looking outside the window, it is still dark, at least an hour later than Nanjing. When it was nearly eight o'clock, I saw that the sky was getting brighter, so I quickly went out to the lake.

Dianchi Lake, also known as Kunming Lake, is the largest freshwater lake in Yunnan and the sixth largest freshwater lake in China. From the map, it is a narrow lake in the north-south direction, with an area of 330 square kilometers and a sea level of 1886 meters. The lake type belongs to an earthquake fault subsidence lake.

The sky is getting brighter and there is a gust of breeze, but this little wind brings layers of waves. The lake water was splashing against the bank of the lake, and the sound was very loud. Standing 4 or 5 meters away from the bank, I was actually splashed with water and flowers. It scared me to take a big step back. The wave seemed to be pressing over. After standing still, I felt funny. Maybe there was no one else around, which made me feel uneasy?

Walking west along Hubin Road, you will pass Dianchi Haigeng Park. To the north of the park is Yunnan Minzu Village. Yunnan Ethnic Village has 12 villages including Bai and Dai to show tourists the cultural customs of Yunnan's ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to go in and experience it.

Turning north along the bank of the lake, you will find the famous Haigeng Dam. In winter, Haigeng Dam is a place for Internet celebrities to check in. The dam is about 2.8 kilometers long. From November to March every year, thousands of red-billed gulls come here from Siberia for the winter. These birds are not afraid of people at all. They fly freely in the sky in groups. The scene is very spectacular.

Sometimes the red-billed gulls still stand on the railing and look at the scenery.

Guandu ancient town

Kunming Changshui Airport is in the north of the city, and Dianchi Lake is in the south of Kunming City. On the way to the airport, I decided to visit Guandu Ancient Town.

The Guandu mentioned here is not the place where the "Battle of Guandu" occurred in the late Eastern Han Dynasty as we learned in history books. In ancient times, the water level of Dianchi Lake was higher and the area was larger than it is now. Guandu Ancient Town is located on the northeast bank of Dianchi Lake. Local people catch snails, and their shells pile up like mountains. This place is called "nest hole". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, this was a lively market, and a large number of ships in the lake were anchored here, forming a ferry. Many officials and scholar-officials would disembark here to drink and entertain when visiting Dianchi Lake. Over time, it became known as "Guandu".

I searched the Internet and said that "in the past, Guandu was home to merchants and tall towers. There were five mountains, six temples, seven pavilions, eight temples and many cultural landscapes." I also checked specifically: Miaozhan Temple, Fa Temple, Guanyin Temple, Wugu Temple, Randeng Temple, and Feiliang Temple are the six temples of Guandu; Wenming Pavilion, Lingyun Pavilion, Kuixing Pavilion, Doumu Pavilion, Yuhuang Pavilion, Suoshui Pavilion, and Pilu Pavilion are the seven pavilions of Guandu; Tuzhu Temple, Yuewang Temple, Confucian Temple, Niangniang Temple, Taiyi Temple, Tudi Temple, Huoshen Temple and Wu Temple are the eight temples of Guandu. Some of these buildings are no longer there, but the scenery of the time can still be seen from the surviving buildings.

Walking along the main road in the middle of the town, most of the main ancient buildings are concentrated in the northwest. The most famous building is the Jingang Tower of Miaozhan Temple in the picture below.

The Jingang Tower of Miaozhan Temple was built in the second year of Tianshun in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1458). It was renovated twice in the 35th year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1696) and in 1982. The King Kong Tower is all built with sand and gravel. The main tower is about 16 meters high and the base is square with a side length of about 10 meters. There are 5 stupas built on the base, which are of the King Kong Throne type towers. There are cross doors on all sides of the base for people to pass through.

This Jingang Tower reminds me of the Zhaoguan Crossing Street Stone Tower in Xijin Ferry in Zhenjiang. Although the two are quite different in appearance, they are both located in the ancient ferry. They are both Lama-tower stone towers, and they are both places where people can walk through the base. style.

On the north side of the King Kong Tower stand two yellow square towers. These are two square 13-story solid brick towers, with a height of 17.5 meters and a side length of 5.5 meters. They were built during the Yuantai Ding period, renovated many times, and completed during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty. The West Tower was destroyed by an earthquake in the 13th year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty (1833 AD). The current West Tower was rebuilt in 2001.

Looking at the map on my mobile phone, there should be Miaozhan Temple behind the twin towers, but I only saw one Shaolin Temple, so I asked an old man sitting under the stone tower selling incense sticks. The old man gave me some guidance: You take a few steps forward, walk under the plaque of Shaolin Temple and look up. There is also a plaque behind the plaque of Shaolin Temple, which says Miaozhan Temple. Songshan Shaolin Temple took over temples such as Miaozhan Temple, Tuzhu Temple, Lega Temple and Guanyin Temple in Guandu Ancient Town, so Miaozhan Temple is equivalent to the Kunming branch of Shaolin Temple.

Tuzhu Temple is very close to Miaozhan Temple.

Tuzhu Temple was built during the Nanzhao period (Nanzhao State was one of the six powerful small states located in Yunnan in the early Tang Dynasty) and has been around for more than 1200 years. The temple buildings we see so far were rebuilt during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. Here is dedicated to the Mahajara Great Black Sky God, one of the three major protective gods of Nanzhao (the other two are Guanyin and Vishamen). After a little bit of searching, the Dahetian god was originally the embodiment of the Brahmin religion Shiva (i.e., the Dahetian god), but was later absorbed by Buddhism and became an important guardian god in the Buddhist Tantra.

When entering the temple, the first thing you see is the main hall. The biggest feature of this Tuzhu Temple is the complex arches under the eaves of the main hall.

The main hall was rebuilt in the 21st year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1895). It has a single eaves on the top of the mountain. There are four floors of dense carved arch arches under the front eaves. All arch heads are carved into colorful dragon heads, which are exquisite and complex. The data shows that although this kind of arch is exquisite, it is architecturally not conducive to the stability of the house because of its heavy weight.

When I left Tuzhu Temple, I realized that the mountain gate was not the common Four Heavenly Kings. I don't know what to call the two statues of two generals holding tall horses?

There is a famous Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an, and there is also a Kunming Forest of Steles Museum in Guandu Ancient Town. It is not large in scale. The steles and rubbings inside show the cultural history around Kunming.

What should be particularly mentioned here is that without manual explanation, it is really necessary to buy an audio explanation on Ctrip or Gaode. For a few yuan, the history and main attractions of the ancient town are clearly explained. It was based on the pronunciation explanation that I found the earliest "Stone Carved in the Fourth Year of Yanguang in the Eastern Han Dynasty", the inscription of the Song Dynasty's "Alliance Monument between Duan's Family and Thirty-Seven Departments" unearthed in Qujing (immediately thought of Mr. Jin Yong's "Eight Departments of the Dragon"), and the inscription of the Ming Dynasty's "Mahazhi Tombstone"(an inscription written by Zheng He for his father, which shows that Zheng He was from Yunnan).

The Fa Temple is similar to the Tuzhu Temple. It was also built during the Nanzhao period and rebuilt in the 21st year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty. It was the place where Buddhist Tantra rose in Guandu.

The temple's treasure is Maitreya carved on white stone in the Tianwang Hall, which is different from the image of the big-bellied Maitreya Buddha we usually see.

Here I want to talk about the Bell Tower and Drum Tower that impressed me deeply.

The picture above shows the Bell Tower. The Drum Tower and Bell Tower look exactly the same. The sun is too strong, and the color of the pictures taken is a little white. In fact, the color should be more vivid. In addition, there are layers of bucket arches under the eaves of the building (this should also be a bucket arch? I am an architect), and the overall style is also complex and exquisite.

There is also a "Ten Kings Hall" in the Legal Temple. This was the first time I saw such a hall name and I was very curious. When I stepped into the temple door, I suddenly saw the black and white impermanence, which scared me. It turned out that the "Ten Kings" were the ten kings of hell.

Not far from the Legal Temple is the Food Street. It is already noon, so it is just time to have lunch to calm down.

The first restaurant on the street is called "Liuhuan Cuisine", which is marked as a time-honored Kunming brand. CCTV has also filmed programs here.

There are so many varieties of snacks here, and one person can't eat so many. It's really annoying! Finally, I chose tofu pudding rice noodles and tofu noodle soup dumplings.

The total amount of the two snacks was only 16 yuan. I thought it would be small portions, so I went to the window to pick up the meal. Oh my God, two solid bowls! Although the price is cheap, it tastes good. After the bean pudding rice noodles are mixed well, they are spicy and smooth; the bean noodle dumpling is a glutinous rice dumpling rolled with fried soybean flour and poured with brown sugar juice. It is soft, glutinous and sweet. Based on the principle of not wasting it, I was really full after eating it. Then look at the signature Guandu Sweet White Rice Wine (called wine in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces), fried bait nuggets, rose papaya water... What a pity!

From Guandu Ancient Town to Changshui Airport, you can take Metro Line 1 and transfer to Line 2 (there is actually no need to get off the bus and transfer to line, Line 1 will directly transform into Line 2 after passing Huancheng South Road) and get off at Tangzixiang Station and transfer to Line 6. On the way to the airport, I decided to stop at Tangzi Lane to visit Jinma Biji Square.

Jinma Biji Store

When I heard about the "Golden Horse Biji Square" before, I thought it was an archway named Golden Horse Biji. When I reached the place where I could see the archway, I found that there were only two words "Golden Horse" on it. Are the two words "Green Chicken" on the back? Walking forward a little, I found that there were actually two archways, one "Golden Horse Square" and the other "Biji Square".

Jinbi Road, where Jinma and Bijifang are located, should be close to the city center, surrounded by high-rise buildings. These two archways were built during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty. They are gate-style and ancient brick bases and wooden structures, with flying eaves and angled corners, and still have complex and exquisite arch arches. After the two archways were completed, they were repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt many times. The archway we see so far was rebuilt in 1998. After coming back, I searched on Baidu and said that these two archways and Zhong 'ai Square stood side by side to form the three squares with the word "Pin". It seemed that there was no other Zhong' ai Square at the scene?

As I got off the subway halfway to see Jinma Biji Square, I arrived at the airport and went through security and other procedures and rushed to the boarding gate. I had already started boarding the plane. It was so thrilling!

Walking on the covered bridge leading to the plane, there are many tropical plant patterns on both sides of the bridge deck, allowing me to deepen my memory before leaving the city. This time is just a hasty glimpse. I believe that I will be able to experience this warm city in depth in the near future. Let the epidemic pass quickly. The world is so big. I want to go and see it!