Shangri La

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I spent the day wandering in the old town. The old town is in traditional style, but much of it is a recent creation. That includes the huge golden prayer wheel - the biggest in the world perhaps. When I arrived at the wheel it was not turning. After about ten minutes one of the monks turned up and organised thlo calls to all heave on it at the same time to get it going. I joined in and it was quite heavy to pull round, depending on the number of people who were joining in. As well as wandering the streets I visited two small museums. The first had a collection of local costumes and a display on Tibetan Medecine. The medecine display included lots of thankas with diagrams of the human body, various ailments and their cures and the plants and animals used for the remedies. The second small museum was about the "long march" by the armies of the Chinese communist party in 1936. The local relevance is some parts of the army passed through and rested at Shangri La before continuing north through the mountains. There was also some information about underground communist parties founded by the locals in the area. After the "liberation" by the red army there was a very brief mention of local resistance, but little detail. It would be interesting to know whether the local Tibetans agree or not with the message of the museum. There was time during the day to enjoy Tibetan momos (dumplings) and mushrooms from the stalls in the main square. This time I joined with several of the dances in the square. Some of them were quite easy to pick up, and some had me flummoxed.

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