Heshun Ancient Town and Tengchong Volcanoes

National 5A Tourist Attraction; Tengchong Volcanic Geothermal National Geopark · Tengchong, Yunnan

A town of grey-tiled courtyard houses on a hillside above paddy fields in far western Yunnan, forty kilometres from Myanmar, built by families who made money on the Burma trade and sent their sons abroad. Heshun looks Chinese but is full of things brought home: Western clocks in ancestral halls, English books in what is claimed to be the largest village library in China, founded in 1928, and a stone-flagged main lane lined with washing pavilions where women still beat laundry in spring water. It is quieter and more lived-in than Yunnan's famous old towns, with no ticket gate on the lanes themselves. Tengchong, ten minutes away, sits on a volcanic field: about ninety cones, the best-preserved of them - Dakongshan and Xiaokongshan - climbable by stepped paths in the Volcano Geopark, with hot springs steaming across the valley at Rehai, where the water comes out above ninety degrees. Between them they make one of the most rewarding two-day stops in the province, and one of the least visited by outsiders.

Heshun Town, Tengchong, Baoshan, Tengchong, Yunnan, China

Both sites daily, about 8:00-18:00; Heshun's lanes stay open in the evening for guests staying in the town. Volcano Park pricing varies between sources.

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