Brief information on Dragon Gate  

Dragon Gate (Longmen) is located in the south of Sanqing Pavilion in Western Hill, and includes the whole stone sculpture project in the cliff from north to south. Dragon Gate was constructed by many different craftsmen over many years. In the beginning, a poor Taoist came to Western Hill and discovered the magnificent place.   He first carved the plank road to the old stone .Then he began to carve the image of a colorful phoenix holding a seal in its mouth with clusters of clouds and dancing phoenix, hence its name “Phoenix Rock”. In the north, outside the stone room, there are several inscriptions made by great calligraphers and poets. In the upper south part of the stone room, there is a small stone cave with a pavilion leaning into it, which is called Laojun Palace. Further to this the Taoist began to carve Plank Road from the Phoenix Rock to the south. Plank Road is so narrow that it will only allow one person to walk across at a time. If two people walk across it towards each other, they need to edge along the cliff when they meet in the middle of the road. Plank Road is more than 40 meters long, and leads to the new stone room-Ciyun Cave. In this cave, the Taoist sculpted the God figure, statues and other utensils based on the original stones, all of which showcase his masterly workmanship. The whole project took the Taoist a full fourteen years, during which he endured many trials.  After this, a man named Yang Rulan (of the Qing Dynasty) continued the project. He carved the Yunhua Cave in the south of Ciyun Cave, and it took him nine years. Then his son took over the project and didn’t finish it until 1853. In the following years, there were intermittent periods of ruin and restoration up to 1999, at which time many footpaths were completed on the mountain to ensure safety.

*You can download the bilingual note to show it to a taxi driver or someone else to find your way to Dragon Gate if you plan to visit Dragon Gate and have language problems.

   

Hours: 08:00-19:00
Address: Southwest of Kunming City, Yunnan Province
Phone: 0871-8426668
Transportation: Buses:5, 6