Nuohei Village

120 kilometers (75 miles) away from Kunming City and 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the Stone Forest, Nuohei Village is totally built with stones. At first glance, visitors must see rows of grey stone houses. So people are always likely to call it Stone Village.

In addition, this village is a typical primitive tribe of Yi ethnic minority. There are more than 600 villagers living there, but only a few of them belongs to Han nationality. Paying a visit to Nuohei Village, tourists can get close to Yi minority and have a chance to participate in folk activities.
 

Nearly everything in this village is built with stones, including stone laid roads, stone walls, stone laid square, and a large quantity of stone houses. … Stone houses here mostly have two floors. Moreover, what may surprise you is that you can’t see any cement mortar among stone gaps. 
 

The entrance to Mizhi Holy Forest, always called Mizhilin, is a stone gate, which looks like a face. People can only enter through its mouth. Inside the forest, all trees stand straight with thick leaves which blot out the sky and cover the sun. In addition, Mizhi Holy Forest is a kind of worship of nature by local people. When travelling through this holy forest, visitors should pay close attention to the natural forest environment and obey travel rules.

Mizhilin is also the name of a traditional festival in Nuohei Village. Surprisingly, only males can take part in this activity. And it is only held once a year. 
 

Inside the museum, visitors can see a series of displays showing daily uses, agricultural tools and cultural relics left by predecessors, which help visitors learn more about villagers’ daily lives in past times.
 

A mountain stands behind the village. There is a path to the top of the mountain and a pavilion on the hillside. Standing at the top the mountain, visitors can have a panoramic view of the whole stone village. However, tourists need to be careful when walking on the downhill path because of its narrowness, and high inclination. 
 

A few restaurants receive visitors, and they provide not only entertainments but also the best local cuisines, including Eight Grand Dishes and Yi Minority Banquet including stewing chicken, and stir-fried smoked pork. 
 

In order to provide colorful activities for visitors, the restaurants have arranged a series of folk singing and dancing shows of fixed duration. If you are lucky to come across festive celebrations, villagers will sing and dance around a bonfire at night which you can actively participate in.
 

1. Visitors may suffer from the intense sunshine, so it’s recommended to bring along sunglasses and sunscreen cream. Timely water replenishment is essential as well. 
2. Visitors are expected to respect local customs.
3. It’s advised to spend about 2 hours for sightseeing.
 

You need to take a long-distance bus at Kunming East Passenger Station to Shilin County. It takes about one and a half hours. Then, you need to take a bus from Shilin County Passenger Station to Haiyi, and tell the driver to put you down in Nuohei Village. It costs CNY 8.