Tangfu Hotel Shangri-La

... itself and we are all safe, except for a few who have banged their heads.<br><br>The road was narrow and although the driver seemed very competent he had been answering his frigging mobile phone at the time.<br><br>The hub attached to the axle was badly bent. They took it off and banged it into shape with a rock and re-attached it to the bus. The bus engine roars to life. I am on the wrong side of the bus, separated from Carl and our other friends. I ...

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... La was no exception. The size of a full-sized van, the bus was packed with 16 people, 4 of which couldn't go more than 2 km without smoking another cigarette, and the rest likely had swine flu.<br><br>The ride was five swervy bumpy hours up the mountains along a remarkably-well-maintained road (except for a few rockfalls) to the high-valley town of Shangri-La, also known as Zhongdian before the government renamed it in a bid to attract tourists. <br><br>The ...

... and electric pads. Up about 8ASM breakfast and on our way by 9 AM. Mostly downhill but some strenuous uphill stretches. Very rocky trail, Reached Tina's GH about 2 PM Again a beautiful warm sunny day so much of the hike was in T shirts. Hired a four wheeler for the five of us take us along the low road, partly paaved., back to Jane's. There we picked up our full ...

... small waterfall. But I killed myself getting there. Tomorrow is the hardest day on the ride. 80kms and a 2 km hike. There's apparently an even bigger hill, so I'm glad I got some practice in. It is going to be fun. Tonight had another huge Chinese meal. Everything is very fresh and I ate a lot. There's always a dozen dishes or more and it costs about $5 a person. Had another massage too. I am addicted to ...

... and tried some more local flavours, this time the yak cheese balls were not to either of ours tastes. The next day the Swedish girl left the group as they had to return to Kunming, and also we would be saying our goodbyes to Mark and the others, but not before we went to an Tibetan cultural event at the cultural centre. It was very interesting, there was lots of traditonal Tibetan songs and music, all the guys were dressed in tradtional ...

... yak, mushroom, and three different plates of vegetables and rice. Now it is time to try to catch up on some much needed sleep! ======================================= ============ This magnificent 35km-long (21-mile) mountain range framing Li Jiang is a must-visit. The tallest of the mountain's 13 peaks is the daunting Shanzifeng (Fan Peak; elev. 5,596m/18,355 ft.), perennially snowcapped and climbed for the first time only in 1963 by a research team from ...

... surprisingly cheaper, which goes to show that it is worth while shopping around even for a good room. Like Dali and Lijiang before, Zhongdian is a rebuilt old town and is very picturesque, it is very much a Tibetan town the houses sturdily built with enormous logs of wood and very colourful, all this like the other towns in the ...

... was spent drinking and playing cards with my new friends until it was time to hit the hay. Time to move on... We woke as normal - early thanks to the trumpeter - so we grabbed another mama breakfast. We then booked our bus to Dali leaving at 2.40pm. All of us were to be traveling to dali except martha. Rob and i decided to use the rest of the day to update blogs and the like so that is what we did until it was time to head back to catch our bus. This is how great mama and ...

... Rosie made us some scrambled eggs, which unfortunately were not as good as the sandwiches. She had tried to explain something to us the night before but we hadn't quite picked it up. We thought she had said "tomorrow I will ride a horse for the first time as soon she will be a guide like her father", and she was going to show us in the morning. So she collected her stuff together and took us up the mountainous gravel road which trailed the hillside in the distance. We had opted ...