Shangrila

---

I am not sure whether it should be Shangrila, Zhongdian or Diqing, i think they are all the same. This place is culturally Tibetans but politically Chinese, the locals speak mostly Tibetans among themselves and Mandarin to the tourists. We flew to Diqing from Kunming by Eastern China Air, ~1 hour flight from Kunming Wujiaba airport.

Shangrila was surprisingly cold. We didn't know it would be so cold in late April. Ground temperature was 2ºC. We were approached by a group of taxi drivers and tourist touts as we came out from the airport. We eventually decided to hire a car to take us around Diqing.

Our little hotel is named Happy Garden Hotel, we booked online. It's located somewhere close to the Museum and the Big Temple. The hotel location is central and it's also accessible by car, which we later found out is a good thing. If we had booked a hotel in the middle of the old town, we would have to carry our luggage all the way into the old town. Right in front of our hotel is the Big Temple, with the imposing golden big prayer wheel and surrounded by plum blossoms trees. After leaving out luggage at the hotel, we were taken to Sumtseling Lamasery. The entrance ticket was very expensively priced at RMB 85, anyway it was not an option for us to choose not to go to the temple, after all we were already in Shangrila. From the outside, the Lamasery looks stunning. Tibetan architecture is very different from everything else that I have seen. We had to walk a long flight of stairs before we could reach the temples. Inside the temples photography is forbidden so we didn't take any pictures. There were statues of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas just like other Buddhist temples. The only difference is the statues are Tibetan.

After the Lamasery, our driver drove us to the new town for lunch where we tasted Yak meat. It's quite different from beef. After a little shopping in the new town, QiLin (the name of our driver) took us to his house (a traditional Tibetan house). It's a huge building. beautifully constructed and decorated with beautiful wood carvings. A strange feature about the Tibetan houses is they don't have toilet nor bathroom. @@

Later on, we went to a huge grassland (NapaHai) for horse riding. The Tibetan women in NapaHai then explained to us about the funeral rites that is practiced by the Tibetans. There are 3 types of funerals, roughly translated from Mandarin - Fire funeral, Water funeral and Sky funeral. Fire funeral is practically cremation, it usually takes place in the winter. It's a common practice among the Buddhists. Water funeral is common among the Shangrilas Tibetans where they cut the dead into pieces and throw the pieces into the river.
The other type of funeral is commonly practiced in Tibet - Sky funeral - dead bodies were left to be eaten by the vultures.

On the second day, we explored Pudacuo National Park where we had to walk paths that were few km long .The park itself is a beautiful place. Unfortunately for me, I felt tired and sleepy. I don't know if I was suffering from altitude sickness, lack of oxygen or just plain exhaustion.

We spend the evening of our second day wandering in the old town. There is a dance party going on every day somewhere close to the museum and the Big Temple. They play some kind of Tibetan music that everybody danced to, the old, the young, men and women, it was fun looking at the way they danced, mom joined in but gave up after a few minutes, obviously she cant dance..

Our last day in Shangrila was spent wandering aimlessly around the new town of Diqing, enjoying Tibetan architecture, local lifestyle, sunshine, cheap food, local market etc etc. In the afternoon we took a bus and left for our next destination - Lijiang

---