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!
Kunming's etymological vapor trail
Posted byCorrect Jarhead, thanks for spotting that. The error has been corrected.
Results: Best of Kunming 2011
Posted by@walter: Thanks for the suggestion.
@The Mask, congratulations and thanks for the kind words. BTW, we serve the English-speaking/literate community, which of course includes most foreigners, but also many locals!
Getting Away: Chiang Mai
Posted byIn Chiang Mai now and must say the North Gate Jazz Co-op, just a 10 second walk to the east as you walk out the north gate of the old town, is highly recommended for anyone that likes good live music. Saw 15 musicians tear it up on Tuesday night... the audience wouldn't let them stop playing. Great fun.
2012: Three game-changers for Kunming
Posted bywww.travpr.com/[...]
According to this report, there will be four runways and an eventual annual capacity of 68 million travelers, with total investment at US$3.6 billion.
Forgotten British consulate getting Chinese facelift
Posted bywww.ynbaoshan.travel/en/lmview.asp?lmid=230&newsid=475
I'm operating under the assumption that the "war" in the penultimate line is supposed to be "wall".