Shangri-la!

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Caught the bus out of the gorge up to Zhongdian - the inspiration for Shangri-la and now apparenty renamed that in order to attract more tourists.

We cruised up through the hills and emerged on a comparatively flat brown plateau, and noticed a change in building style along the roadside - boxier, trapezoidal and wooden rather than tile shingles. Some have an 'upside down roof', draining towards the center into a single eavestrough that emerges as a spout through each end of the building. This is the taste of Tibet for those of us not actually going. The town is over 3000 meters, so it was noticably cold - especially since we're really carrying gear for hot weather; sandals(!) with windbreaker and fleece only, and the indoors are essentially unheated. Our room's electric blanket was not on par with the performance of previous ones. We'd bought some cheap mittens on a cooler day in Lijiang and were glad we had.

The town has an attractive old section, similar to Lijiang in a way - cobblestone streets and older buildings filled with souvenirs. Nice to walk around in. In one internet cafe Farah was talking about how cold it was, so the owner fired up an open brazier - basically a large ceramic bowl filled with flaming wood or coal - and slid it right under the table! I checked the nearest exit and was trying to decide whether the tablecloth or my synthetic pants would be first to ignite, but the worst effects were only watery eyes and a mild case of CO poisoning. (Either that or the altitude gave us the headaches, we're not sure...) Later, a nightly evening dance broke out in the square with the local folks.

The local Tibetan style monastery made the trip here well worthwhile. Quite a large complex; big square buildings widening slightly toward the bottom, various temples with colourful tapestries, quite unique murals and giant statuary. The roof of the central building was capped with gold, and there were bold markings on the building walls. With the plateau around and snowy mountains off in the distance, you did feel you had one foot into Tibet.

Some interesting food here as well, streetside stands sell flatbread and hardboiled eggs. We tried yak - extra beefy beef, like buffalo. Breakfast was Yak butter tea, Yak cheese, buckwheat pancake, one "no-bake chocolate cookie"(?) and hard boiled egg.

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Photos

Inside
incredible murals