Kunlun Hostel Shangri-La

... for dinner - a beautiful old wooden house, with a fire burning & beautiful decorated rooms with lounges. Made myself comfortable right in front of the fireplace & ordered Yak Momos ( dumplings) which I hated!! The last 2 days everywhere we have gone a kitten has made its home on my lap - miaowing & purring loudly. Tonight was no exception ...

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... 1499;נס 14;י לשחיה באחת הבריכ 93;ת. אין כמו להכנס למים בכדי להרגי 13; יותר חי.
ירדתי בחזרה למטה בפ ...

... lucky province has achieved a higher standard of living, enjoying TVs and satellite dishes etc (really, these are the examples given as proof of the betterment of Diqin in a Shangri-La museum!), but of course those who don't get jobs in the government, in tourism or hospitality - and move with the changes - could be left behind. However, in Lijiang late at night, we saw boys carrying two big buckets of rice and stew around the streets, serving it to shop owners and ...

... The region's historic gateway, Zhongdian, was renamed in 2001 after the fictional paradise of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon": Shangri-La. But the rustic frontier town is hardly a paradise. Butcher shops hang yak carcasses dripping with blood out front to dry. Stray dogs roam the dusty streets. Cinder-block homes on back and side streets are surrounded by cinder-block walls topped with broken bottle glass. Hotel and other construction sites are surrounded by ...

... trail blazing on the way to glacier and got to walk on some tallis slopes, which proved exciting for many. At the end of the day we drank fresh water from a glacier; I had to think hard about the giardia complex but in the end, dyhyration won and I drank some fresh glacier water hoping I wouldn't see any negative effects in two weeks. (For those concerned, it was perfectly fine and giardia free).

... the brakes and the bus began to skid on the narrow icy road toward the 1500 foot drop off the cliff. As Kristin and I were both on the cliff side of the bus we could do nothing but watch our approaching doom approach. We stopped a few centimeters short of the edge (no guardrails in China) and I looked to the front of the bus to see that we were inches away from a head on collision with a truck coming the other way (hence the brakes). Kristin and I looked at each other ...

... 50 pence as "I am unlikely to use them again before Seattle where I would much rather pay more than carry more for 4 months". You can quote me on that by the way. Lucky for us then, that our hostel chose not to invest in heating but to opt for the slightly cheaper alternative of electric blankets. Now all they need is a reliable electricity supply and they'll be laughing. A quirky place, where the streets ...

... refreshment/picture oppertunity so we all bundled out and entered the grounds. The views were fantastic but my attention wasnt on the views or the temple as i spotted a really beautiful green plant that i had never seen grow in the wild before.. :) anyway... It wasnt long before we set off again, target destination: Qiaotou. When we arrived we all got out of our respective vans and were instructed to buy our park entry tickets, which we did but as we doing so a older ...

... The first part of the trip worked its way past the same area as we went to Tiger Leaping Gorge, except this time at a convenient toilet stop we were able to buy some of the strawberries being sold along the roadside. They were delicious. Probably even more so since it had been quite some time we had eaten whole strawberries. Further on, the bus passed under a construction site - it was a dam being constructed - scaffolding supporting the roof above. Yes, a little scary ...