Blogs from Shangri-La, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 4

On our last day in Shangri La we awoke to the sound of Buddhist monks chanting - om ra hari om… om ra hari om … - with temple bells and horns breaking the morning serenity. From our hostel room window we could see the huge automated prayer wheel in the hillside temple complex spinning faster than usual as it reflected the early morning sun. As it turned out, this was a special day (although no one could enlighten us about why it was special) with a whole range of activities in the town square. Many local people were dressed in traditional Tibetan costume, there was lots of music and dancing, local politicians handed out awards and gave speeches promising all sorts of benefits from the Middle Kingdom government. By lunch time the event had finished; ... read more

I woke up this morning planning to go on a tour, then realized it was too expensive to go alone. So, what to do? Hmm. First, I headed to N's Kitchen for a lovely hot chocolate and omelet, but my heart started racing when I got halfway through breakfast and I couldn't finish my omelet. Maybe it was the altitude. Anyway, I felt like crap. So, I went for a walk around the old town and realized just how much construction was underway. In their effort to meet the demands of summer tourism, they were making the old town look really authentic. But don't be fooled. It is all new. Beautiful, but shiny and new. They also use a lot of wood, which is surprising given the huge termite mounds I saw yesterday. I decided I ... read more

Shangri-La is such big business now that the idea of going to a town renamed after the fabled landscape in James Hilton's novel 'The Last Horizon' did not immediately appeal. Formerly Zhongdian, the local government declared the county's peaks and valleys to be that which is described in Hilton's novel. Hotels, travel agencies and even airports followed suit and the Shangri-La phenomenon was born. We had planned to pass through on route to Deqin, a further six hours north, but the road was closed and so we stayed. In doing so we found welcoming rosy cheeked Tibetan people who danced in the town square and cared little for the Shangri-La boom. At 3200m above sea level the two hour journey from Qiaotou was mainly up steep roads offering beautiful views when the clouds parted. As we ... read more

Perhaps it was the poor sleeping conditions or the lack of friendly smiles being seen as we would roll into a town or maybe even the fact that our 40 pound bags were weighing us down; whichever reason or excuse you decided to go with the truth of the matter is... slow travel was proving to be too slow and too stretched out for our wallets. So, without much talk and just a look between Simone and I we knew our walking days were over ( for now, let's not get too depressing) Jumping on a bus that ended up making me a believer in motion sickness we traveled deep into the mountains. Now there have been too many night buses and discomforting airless travel accommodations for me to recount all of them but I do ... read more

For the second day of our tour we headed up the canyon by bus to some really cool, steep gorges. steel framed timber walkways had been bolted to the smooth rock face on one side as we clinbed 700m up many, many stairs. This path actually goes on for 4km but had been closed further up as a rockfall had taken out a section. Apoparently they will in the future be doing 5 day hikes up these ravines. The next, and main gorge path was alot easier and was dead flat following the main river for 2.5km. This was really relaxing and nice, and for 120 yuan we caugh inflatable zodiacs back to the resort to see the canyon from the waterline. Lunch, packed into the bus and we were off. We headed back for the ... read more