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Zhongdian Slideshow
Zhongdian
Travel Blogs from Zhongdian, China
Zhongdian...to the edge of the Tibetan world
This is a top pick! ... meditation. The yak herder would be preferable though, the yaks being a major draw. I have learned a lot from coming to Zhongdian, but mainly I have gained a greater appreciation for the majestic yak. What a multi-functional animal. Here's to the yak. ...
Tibet-Sichuan Highway
This is a top pick! ... claimed Shangril'la was in China and a political bidding war ensued over where this mythical place existed. They plumped on Zhongdian, which has pretty nice scenery, but anyone who claims it is 'paradise' is as misguided as Glenn Hoddle ...
Joani Loves Chachi
This is a top pick! ... "Well, I love you as much as a man CAN love a woman" -- Futurama We've just spent a nice two days in Zhongdian, writing e-mails and reading books and pretty much doing nothing of interest whatsoever. It's been a nice change from the near constant ...
Horse festival - Zhongdian or Shangri-la's big one
This is a top pick! ... a two-day affair, as a larger event is planned for September for the 50th anniversary of the area's 'liberation'. The Zhongdian horse festival usually takes place in June, when the labourers are less busy, having either harvasted crops or planted ...
Film attractions in Yunnan
This is a top pick! ... for fans of Lord of the Rings. Now, China Daily has gone in on the game: Famous landscapes and monuments across China have been featured in several recent feature films. Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Yunnan, in The Promise (Wu Ji) ...
Mormon still missing - presumed dead
This is a top pick! ... in Wyoming. Both on the gorge trail and then along the road to Shangri-La, and in Shangri-La, formerly called Zhongdian, the Sneddons met guides and shop owners who recognized David's picture on the placards the Sneddons wore around their necks. From ...
Trouble in Shangri-la - Zhongdian?
This is a top pick! Yesterday Aljazera ran this story filed by a correspondant, which paints a rather 'good vs bad' picture of Zhongdian - better known now as Shangri-la. ...
Chinese - Indian relations and borders
This is a top pick! ... India. But it was surprising to see this piece about the conflicts between China and India and how China could possibly use Kunming, Lijiang or even Zhongdian airports for strikes on India (and vice versa). Within the next four months, a first batch ...
The new Shangri-la
This is a top pick! An interesting article looking at developments in tourism and Tibetan buddhism in Zhongdian . . . Turning paradise into profits The town of Shangri-la was called Zhongdian until 2001, when it made a bid to boost tourism by changing its name to ...
Children's Day in Shambala
This is a top pick! ... , communities, and WWF projects, for use in education and fund raising. By chance or fate, I arrived in Zhongdian in the middle of a WWF-China gathering. Staff from all over China were meeting for a week. I joined them on field trips throughout the ...
Perhaps blues skies is paradise afterall
This is a top pick! Nice quote from a newspaper article in Indonesia, about Zhongdian aka Shangri-la, in Yunnan, China: And one of the first things you notice is the sky. It's a deep cornflower blue, with white cotton-candy clouds. After the gray, polluted skies of modern ...
Will the Real Shangri-la Please Stand Up
This is a top pick! ... Shangri-la. And now China has its Shangri-la. China was late to the game, recently picking its Shangri-la here in Zhongdian, Dequin Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. But as the lama said: "you will not find Shangri-la marked on any map." So why ...
Local Tibetan singers going BIG
This is a top pick! ... , and yet their chorus is also blended with elements of modern music. Since 2005, they have received numerous awards within China, and have performed in Germany, Austria, the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and other places around the world. ...
Anthony Bourdain - chef in Shangrila Zhongdian
This is a top pick! ... . "Delicious". Anything else will surely offend the hosts. So when chef and traveler Anthony Michael "Tony" Bourdain goes to Zhongdian and tries yak meat, what does he say? The American chef, best known for Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the ...
Lies in paradise? Shangri-la dreaming
This is a top pick! ... other than giving it money for last year's 50th anniversary, most of the development has been local. 2. "Originally named Zhongdian, the Chinese government renamed it Shangri-La in 2002, exploiting the mythical valley in the 1933 fictional novel, ...
Climate for a new Shangri-la
This is a top pick! Conditions around the world seem somewhat similar these days to the Great Depression of the 1930s. And with all the doom and gloom around, people are looking for some relief, some hope, some light at the end of the tunnel. I guess it is a ...
Snow storms in Deqin
This is a top pick! The Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) of People's Republic of China urgently allocated 10 million yuan for disaster relief in areas such as Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan, which have recently suffered from severe snowstorms. ...
New airport for Lugu lake
This is a top pick! ... Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, the Mosuo ethnic minority has a population of about 40,000. Unlike the majority of China's ethnic groups that follow a strong patrilineal tradition, the Mosuo have preserved their ancient matriarchal system and the ...
Walking the Streets
This is a top pick! Life settles down back in Zhongdian, one of the few places on earth where a bar could be named "Artistic Space of the Sacred World," and one of the few places I know where public bus number 2 rolls down the evening streets, and all the passengers are ...
Wall Street Journal on Shangri-la and Tibet issue
This is a top pick! ... not about culture, it's not about religion, it's not about the environment -- it's about sovereignty and territorial integrity of China." Beijing is fixated on the idea that the Tibet issue is purely one of sovereignty -- despite the fact that the Dalai ...
...a bucket of disinfectant
This is a top pick! ... extremely lucky that the only long term damage is the broken camera that was in my pocket. In the previous entry i suggested Zhongdian should be named after Disney. To qualify this, Zhongdian is like EuroDisney, an amusement park that is ultimately a ...
Near Death Experience
This is a top pick! ... a few days, and I decided that it didn't make nearly as much of a story as our next bus journey, from Xiancheng to Zhongdian, so I'm afraid you don't get my Dracula metaphor, you get this instead........ We had a couple of nice days in Xiancheng and ...
Watching the Games with Tibetans
This is a top pick! ... 8:08pm and already it had started. We saw a young girl on a stage. Like those singing competitions they have around China outside supermarkets. Then, before we could sit down and get comfortable, the TV went dead. There was no power. People started ...
Happiest orphanage in the world
This is a top pick! Nice story about an orphanage in Zhongdian, which I've been visiting for the last 4 or so years. ShangriLa and Lhasa, China - Fifty years ago, the parents of Tendol Gyalzur were two of about 85,000 Tibetans killed during the suppression of the ...
Visitors up in Shangri-la
This is a top pick! ... of Big Valley National Park, Meili Mountain National Park and Hutiaoxia National Park are also in progress. Source: China Tibet Information Center Deqen Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province, received 2.05 million domestic and ...
we are in Xiangcheng,
This is a top pick! ... so bad. Our cell phone works most places so tell mom that she can call me if she wants. Tomorrow we are going to Zhongdian in North Western Yunnan province to get my visa extended. We will be going to what the Chinese call the Tibet Autonomous ...
Funny, where've the fish gone from the NP?
This is a top pick! ... the past decade, local authorities have tried various ways to attract more visitors. The biggest campaign occurred in 2001, when Zhongdian was renamed Shangri-La, after the fictional land in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote ...
Happy Birthday Tibet
This is a top pick! ... as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated. Our struggle must remain nonviolent and free of hatred." Meanwhile, in Tibetan China, the heavy army presence, the inequality between Tibetans and Han Chinese, the unfree press, and the heavy toll of past ...
New Tea=Horse Route book
This is a top pick! A part time Zhongdian resident Jeff Fuchs has finish his book about retracing the Tea Horse Route - also known as the Southern Silk Route - from Yunnan to Lhasa. Here's an interview with him: Warrior tribes and yak-turd tea Horizons lost and found ...