Kunming is called the Spring City, and the title is earned. Set at about nineteen hundred metres on the Yunnan plateau, it has mild weather almost all year, with warm days, cool nights and a long season of flowers, so that you can ride in a light jacket in January. Dian Lake, the big freshwater lake on the southern edge, spreads out under hills hazy with distance, and gulls from Siberia arrive in winter to feed on bread thrown by the crowds on the lakeside. The city itself, with more than three and a half million people, is a lively and rather modern place of tower blocks, tree-lined avenues and parks.
Kunming is a good base for the exploration of Yunnan, one of the most varied provinces in China. The Stone Forest, a maze of grey limestone pillars about ninety kilometres to the south-east, is among the best known sights. Closer to the city lies the Chengjiang fossil site, where quarries in a hillside near Fuxian Lake have yielded some of the finest fossils of the Cambrian period, about five hundred and eighteen million years old. These show soft-bodied creatures, early fish and strange arthropods, preserved in extraordinary detail, from the time when animal life burst into variety. UNESCO listed the site in 2012.
Food is a draw. Kunming is the home of crossing-the-bridge rice noodles, served as a bowl of scalding broth to which you add raw ingredients at the table, and the story behind the name involves a loyal wife who kept her husband's lunch warm under a layer of chicken fat. Yunnan is also known for its mushrooms, its cheese, a firm fried milk cake called rubing, and its coffee and tea, including Pu'er, grown in the south of the province. Flower markets spill onto the streets, and the spicy, sour flavours of the local cuisine are a pleasure.
Riders should note that foreign motorcycling in China is tightly regulated. Temporary driving permits, local licence plates and guides are often required, and rules change, so check well before you plan a trip and do not assume a normal licence will do. Fuel stations are plentiful in the city and on all main roads. The best seasons are spring and autumn, and the rainy season from June to August brings downpours and fog in the mountains. Traffic in the city is dense, with electric scooters appearing from every direction, and a slow, alert pace is wise.