The beach
ONE OF THE BASIC rules of creating a tourist attraction in modern China is not holding back due to a lack of obvious tourism touchstones: if there's no culture, invent it; if there are no historical attractions, build them; and in the case of the Sunshine Coast, in the mountains of Yunnan, import some sand and plonk it next to a lake. Hey presto, instant beach.
I’ve been visiting the Sunshine Coast, around 120km southeast of Kunming, regularly for a couple of years – less for the beach than for Solitude Island, or Gushan Dao (pictured above and which I will write more about later). But the beach, with its shop-front row of fish restaurants and outlets for floaties, gaily colored swimsuits and straw hats, has an old-school, folksy charm about it. If there were donkeys and Punch & Judy shows, it would be rather like being transported back to Weymouth or Brighton circa 1965 – except with far better weather. In fact, at around 2,000 meters above sea level, Fuxian Lake probably has a better year-round beach climate than the country's premier seaside destination, Hainan Island, or the so-called Hawaii of the East. And there are no Russians here ... yet.
So far, Fuxian has been spared the five-star invasion that ruined Hainan, but that can't be far away. A sprawling monstrosity called the Kowloon Scenic View is under construction about a kilometer from the beach and the Banyan Tree group have an Angsana Resort and Club up and running on the northwest corner of the lake. The nameless lodge that has been my home on every previous visit now has a name – Shuixiang Yuan, or something like Water Village Courtyard – wireless internet, refrigerated Snow Beer and a mahjong room. In other words, it's time to find another lodge – no doubt, in a mountain village that does not yet have a beach.