Guandu, on the plain south-east of Kunming between the city and the Dianchi lakeshore, was for centuries a market town on the road to the lake and the south, and it has kept a dense cluster of religious buildings from the Ming and Qing periods that the surrounding redevelopment has spared. It is now a pedestrian old-town quarter with shops and snack stalls, which makes it easy to visit and slightly over-restored, but the temples in the middle of it are real and old.
The temples
At the centre is a Ming temple with a notable stone stupa - a square-based pagoda in grey stone with carved figures and niches, standing in the middle of the street so that traffic historically passed on both sides of it. Around it are other shrines, five or six in all, including a Confucian hall, a Taoist temple and Buddhist halls, together with an old theatre stage and the remains of the town's guild buildings. It is unusual to find so many traditions within a couple of hundred metres, and the arrangement tells you a good deal about how a Chinese market town was put together: the community's institutions were all here, side by side, in the commercial centre.
The town today
The streets have been tidied and pedestrianised, and they are lined with stalls selling local food. The speciality is a flat, stuffed wheaten cake baked on a griddle and eaten hot, along with rice noodles, bean jelly, fried snacks and the sweet baked goods of Yunnan. There are teahouses and small restaurants, a few workshops selling pottery and silver, and the usual tourist shops. Because it is on the metro, the town fills with Kunming residents at weekends, when the main street becomes a continuous queue of people eating.
Practical notes
Guandu is on the metro and is only thirty minutes from the city centre, which makes it the most convenient old-town excursion around Kunming. The temples charge little or nothing and are open during the day; the food stalls run from morning until evening. It combines naturally with the provincial museum, which is close by, and with the Dianchi lakeshore, where the birdwatching and the wetlands begin. Weekday mornings are the only time the lanes are quiet.
