Why Go
A Town Built on Hot Ground
1. The springs
Tengchong is known for its geothermal ground. Hot springs and boiling pools break out of the rock in the Rehai area, and the pictures here show a terraced mineral deposit built up by spring water, stone-ringed pools and a carved well head beside a cloud of steam.
The spring water is hot enough in places to be too hot to touch, and the area is a working landscape, with pools for bathing set apart from the natural vents.
2. Volcanoes close to town
The city is surrounded by a group of young volcanoes, including Dayingshan, Shitoushan and the two Heikongshan cones, which have erupted repeatedly in the geological past. A volcano park to the south lets visitors walk up and look into a crater.
Near the town the hills are green and the cones are covered in forest and farmland, so a visit shows how a volcanic field can be part of an ordinary landscape.
3. A trade route town
Tengchong sits at the western end of Yunnan, on an old trade route to Burma and Southeast Asia, and merchant families from the area built wealth through that trade. The old town of Heshun, a few kilometres west, preserves the houses that wealth built, and is a natural second stop.
