Heshun Ancient Town

Heshun sits near the Burmese border and made its living from the caravan trade, with generations of men leaving to work in Burma and beyond and sending money back, which built a town of stone-paved lanes, ancestral halls, washing pavilions where the streams leave the village, and a library founded in 1928 that is among the oldest and largest rural libraries in China, still holding tens of thousands of volumes including rare editions. Houses mix Chinese courtyard plans with details picked up abroad. The town is set on a slope above wetland and paddy, with the volcanic hills of Tengchong behind.

What you actually see

• The 1928 library - one of China's oldest rural libraries, still in use.
• The stone lanes - paved streets and ancestral halls up the slope.
• The washing pavilions - roofed structures over the village streams.
• The overseas houses - courtyard homes with details brought from Burma.

When to go

October to May for dry weather; the summer monsoon brings heavy rain to western Yunnan. Rape flowers below the town in late winter. Holidays fill the lanes.

Honest expectations

Entry is charged and the town is heavily geared to visitors, with cafés and guesthouses through the old houses. It is small and covered in a few hours.

Nearby

Tengchong and its hot springs lie east; the volcanoes are north.