I was very excited to be at the Stone Forest, as I have a huge fascination for karst landscape. I do realize that that dark surface of the karst makes for a terrible subject, I found out about this the hard way at El Nido in the Philippines where the karst there are a likewise black. This contrasts with the sky so much that is was difficult to get a proper exposure for the scenery. Anyway, the Stone Forest turns out to be a very large park where numerous sights are scattered. The entrance to the park in understandably crowded but it thins out as you go along. Most of the tour groups would be taking the environmentally friendly electric tour vehicle, for a fee, of course. I’d much prefer that I explore the park on foot rather than crowd it out with the tour groups.
It was actually quite easy for one to explore the park as you would probably just follow the route of the tour bus. At least you would be able to just stop and take photos if you were just walking. You can even explore smaller paths which the park as a lot of, and hopefully find a place with little to no people at all. However, it is probably inevitable that you would end up in the more popular places and with great popularity comes great tour groups. I have come to accept these as a fact of life and just try to live with it. Anyway, they would be rushed out the place soon enough.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/StoneForest.kmz} zoom=19]