Going wild in the wilderness

And so I left the jungle, where so many plants fight fiercely, now once again a dark and mysterious place.

The next day, I visited the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden to learn more about the region's flora and fauna. It's the largest of its kind in the country and is home to the most plant species.

It is also a research center with lots of experts, able to serve as informed guides.

It even provides tailored services for families with specialized interests. For instance, it offers a leaf-tasting tour so that visitors can experience different degrees of sour, sweet, bitter and spicy. The garden also puts on night tours to enable encounters with nocturnal bugs like fireflies.

My guide told me the increase of study tours by families this year has made it harder to get night tickets, which must be booked at least a week in advance during peak season.

"Visitors want to not only have fun but also to learn about nature," she said.