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Published: March 18th 2012
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Mountain Snow
Pudacuo National Park In this area, we have learned much about China and China’s relationship with the Tibetans. The town is part of the “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture”, located right next door to Tibet. Our guide, an ethnic Tibetan and a Buddhist, gave us a great deal of information about Tibetan Buddhism and some knowledge about then history and politics of the area. Needless to say, he was careful.
Shangri La town used to be called Zhongdian, but the government changed the name to Shangri La in 2002, hoping to attract tourists looking for the mystical place described in James Hilton’s
Lost Horizon. We drove here from Lijiang, over mountains and past rivers and lakes and pastures where yaks are still grazing before heading for the higher meadows this summer. The city is definitely ready to receive tourists, as they now have about 500 hotels, though there were few people here, especially compared to the cities we’ve already visited. Much of the town is vacant new buildings, built by investors hoping to cash in – good luck to them! The town also has a huge school for Tibetan children, including dorms for the children and the teachers. The central government has decided that
Tiger Leaping Gorge
I'm not sure there have been any successful runs of this rapid -- and this is low water. it’s better for the Tibetan children to receive a Chinese education, so they are taken from their families and brought to this boarding school, where they stay except for 2-3 short vacation periods. This reminds me too much of the practice we followed in the US with our native Americans, imprisoning the families in reservations and then taking the children to give them English/American educations. There’s little doubt about the goal of these programs.
On the way to Shangri La, we stopped at the Tiger Leaping Gorge viewpoint. It’s where the Yangtze River (one of the world’s largest) narrows down to about 30 meters as it goes around a corner in a deep, deep gorge. There’s a large rock in the middle, and the story behind the name is that some tiger hunters thought they had a tiger cornered on one side of the river and stopped to rest before shooting the tiger. It surprised them by jumping to the rock and then to the other side. Tom went down the 1000 steps to the bottom with our guide, while I only went down about 500. Near the gorge, Yunnan becomes Tibetan, and we were within about 10
Going up the stairs
Probably a good motto for life! miles of the border with Tibet. Travel into Tibet is strictly controlled, and no foreigners are allowed into Tibet in March, when things are particularly touchy. If you read the internet news (you’ll never see anything about world events on our TV, of course) you’ll see that there are problems right now.
On March 16, we traveled toward Deqin, which is way up in the pointy northwest section of Yunnan province. It snowed most of the way, and we knew from the start that we might not be able to cross the 4000 meter (13,000 foot) pass to get to Deqin and a glacier we hoped to hike. Though there were some passport checks near the border, we had no problems and were able to visit the Dongzhuling Monastery, originally built in 1667, where about 500 Yellow Sect Tibetan Buddhist monks live. It’s large and has several floors of areas for meditation and prayer. The mountain and valley views are incredible. Our guide told us we had about a 10% chance of getting over the pass, and we had to consider whether the snow might keep us in Deqin when we needed to head back to Kunming, so
Protection
We were told that it was for protection against both earthly dangers and evil spirits. we drove another 4 hours on mountain roads back to Shangri La. Smart move, as we saw four road accidents on our way back AND it snowed all the way down in Shangri La overnight. We might still be in Deqin.
St. Patrick’s Day! Not celebrated here, needless to say. We saw no green beer or shamrocks. However, we did go to Pudacuo National Park. I didn’t know it when we went, but we were at almost 13,000 feet above sea level, higher than either of us had ever been. It was minus 8 degrees centigrade, so we wore everything we brought with us. We were OK though, as the walking kept us warm. I was proud of being able to walk around the lake, a couple of miles on wooden walkways. However, when we went to the next lake (at 11,482 feet) there was a LONG set of stairs, which Tom walked, while I sat in the sun. The park really reminded me of Yellowstone, with yak herds instead of buffalo.
Today, we plan to do some more hiking and see another park, then fly back to Kunming. I’m hoping we won’t have any BIG
Shangri La Market
These containers are for making yak-butter tea. adventures today and we have good internet connections, so I’ll post today!
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Emily
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ShangriLa?
What a neat trip! Shangri-La, huh? Hardly seems like what one would expect from Lost Horizon. But the produce seems heavenly!