Heshun Ancient Town sits 4 kilometres from central Tengchong — close enough to reach by bicycle or a short taxi ride. The settlement has around 6,000 residents and more than 1,000 traditional courtyard houses, a hundred of which date to the Qing dynasty. Unlike many "ancient towns" in China that have been stripped of residents and converted to tourist commerce, Heshun remains genuinely inhabited. People live in the houses, wash clothes in the communal wash pools, and use the ancestral halls for actual gatherings.
The architecture is the principal draw: tall entrance gates leading into courtyards with carved stonework and wooden screens, guild halls built to impressive civic scale by trading families, and the overall texture of a town that remained prosperous and intact through most of the twentieth century. The library building, founded in 1928, is particularly handsome. Walking the lanes without a map — getting slightly lost among the grey stone walls and the sound of village life — is more rewarding than following the numbered tourist circuit. The wash pools at the town entrance are the social heart of Heshun life and worth sitting near for half an hour.