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Golden Temple, Kunming, August 2007

This temple is on a hilltop just outside Kunming. It's great fun getting there by bus and when you arrive you discover there are wee fiber-glass buggies on cables to pull you all the way to the top along rails that weave through the pine trees. It's called the Alpine Coaster and would be worth the ride even if there wasn't a temple at the top. But there probably wouldn't be an Alpine Coaster either, then....
 

The temple is situated in thick woodland and the grounds are a maze of paths and hidden gardens. We tried to see everything but probably missed a lot.
 

Here are some of the gardens...and there's Sveta dropping a coin into a big tub of water for good luck. Or that's what we assumed was the reason. Everyone else was doing it so we did it too.
 

Later, we climbed to the top of the bell tower and Sveta got more chances at good fortune with the lucky bell. It was two yuan to strike the bell with the big wooden fish, but Sveta negotiated a deal for three strikes for five yuan and got a free Buddha pendant too. There were more gardens to explore around the bell tower and in a shelter in one, we listened to some old guys playing music. On the way down hill, we explored the woods around the temple and look what we found growing there.
 

 

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