Blogs from Shangri-La, Yunnan, China, Asia

The following morning we had vegetable noodle soup for breakfast at a local restaurant before hopping into the car and driving to Tacheng National Park. Once we arrived at the park we hopped into the over sized golf buggy and made our way up the hill. Tacheng National Park is home to a reasonable sized population (approximately 360) of the Yunnan snub nosed monkey (sometimes called golden monkeys). The monkeys are endangered, as a result of habitat loss, with only about 1700 remaining in the wild. They live at altitudes above 3000m. After walking uphill for about 45 minutes we came across a group of about 16 monkeys who were probably wondering why so many humans were watching them eat the last of their breakfast, groom each other and play. Fortunately the monkeys were not brave ... read more

Shangri-La... It's cold in Tibet ! Visit of the huge Tibetan monastery and a quick visit to the old town (mostly burned down two years ago, being rebuild now). - city bus number 3 to the monastery gate, 1Yuan. - entrance fee for the monastery and local transportation, 125Yuan !!! - city bus return to downtown, 1Yuan. - laundry 20Yuan.... read more

... 2 mars (Dans une mini-van en direction de Shangri-la) Je m'agrippe à la poignée de porte et prend un grand respire. Ancré le long de la route du Tiger Leaping Gorge, le Tina's Guesthouse de ma dernière nuit est maintenant derrière moi. Ça fait seulement cinq minutes que nous avons quitté que déjà, je comprend dans quel désagréable manège j'ai prit place. Le chauffeur suicidaire semble en pleine course avec lui-même. Le précipice de l'une des gorges les plus profondes au monde tombe sèchement à partir de la route. Les garde-fous sont absents. Malgré cela, le conducteur roule quand même à une vitesse démesurée dans les courbes comme s'il tenait le volant d'un jeu d'arcade. On est balancé de droite à gauche dans la mini-van. Un rodéo. Le voilà maintenant qui dépasse aveuglément dans les ... read more

And so from the magnificence of Tiger Leaping Gorge, it was a 2.5h bus ride further north to my last stop in northern Yunnan. With time running out on my visa, I'd previously wondered whether I should even come this far, as it would entail having to take a (relatively) more expensive flight back to Kunming, before racing down to the border with Vietnam. But with a name like Shangri-la, how could you not go? Historically known as Zhongdian, the local government decided to rename the city after the mythical paradise of James Hilton's novel, which was set to the east of Tibet, in hopes of tourism spin-offs. And how has it worked. Shangri-la has very quickly become a sort of mini-Lijiang, with its restored and clean Old Town featuring the obligatory hodge-podge of restaurants, guesthouses, ... read more

Yunnan, just by name it could inspire so many questions... Always seems to have a veil of mystery, the most mysterious of all is of course famous Shangri-La, which was originally called Di qi, but changed to Shangri-La for the famous book &moive "Lost Horizon" - James Hilton. I have to say the world has been giving too much credit to the name "Shangri-La", which misleads many people to have very high expectation about the place Shangri-La. I am one of them. Before I went there, every mentioning of Shangri-La made me feel it's a place like "heaven", huge grass land with yaks everywhere, having lake-blue sky and snow-capped mountains as backgroud, local people dressing in their traditional Tibetan style clothes, milking the yaks, making barley wine and dancing around the fire at night. Somewhere hidden ... read more