The tropical botanical garden at Menglun (勐仑) is quite nice, I went there for the first time in November and was very impressed. One can easily spend a day or two there and still not see everything there is to see.
I really enjoyed the afternoon I spent there and only saw a fraction of what there was to see. My favorite part was a less-visited section of pristine rainforest in the back.
There's a hotel located within the garden compound where you can stay overnight, allowing you to essentially have the entire facility to yourselves.
If you choose to stay a day or so, you may want to stock up on food. There's plenty of tasty tropical fruit to be picked up in Jinghong or Menglun. If you want to have a picnic there it may be worth stopping by Wangtianshu Deli (www.gokunming.com/en/listings/item/wan_31347/) in Jinghong before heading out:
It takes about 60-90 minutes to get to Menglun from Jinghong by car. I'd recommend showing up around one or two pm, as during mornings the park has a lot of tour groups passing through. That gives you an afternoon with the gardens basically to yourselves.
If you don't mind taking a little extra time to get to Menglun, I'd suggest rafting from Jinghong downstream to Ganlanba (橄榄坝) and taking a car east from there. It is possible in Jinghong to arrange a driver to meet you at Ganlanba.
Enjoy your trip!
Recipe: Across the bridge noodles
Posted bySounds like a standard bowl of mixian (rice noodles), the tofu may have been a softer version of bean curd known as douhua... we'll try to get a traditional version of this dish on the site in the coming weeks. Thanks for the suggestion!
Chris
Report: No cocaine in Kunming Red Bull
Posted byThanks Dan, the first sources we looked at didn't mention the cola - the error has been corrected.
2009 Kunming Sex Expo to open Saturday
Posted by@NinaC: no idea, the source article for this story didn't mention times or a contact number... i believe it was open from 10 am to 5 or 6 pm last year
Kunming government on global headhunting mission
Posted byWell spotted Yuantongsi, error has been corrected, thanks.
Chris
2008: The Year in Review
Posted byThanks to CalMatt and Lulu - both errors have been corrected.