Teahorse Guesthouse Shangri-La

Notes on China after 5 weeks<br>Crossing the Street &#8211; There are pedestrian <br>crosswalks; however, vehicles always have right of way. The safest method is to <br>wait for Chinese locals and stick to them like glue. Otherwise, just start <br>walking but, do not freeze, then the vehicles may predict your passage and will <br>weave around you.<br>Money &#8211; Credit cards are not common. It is <br>primarily a cash ...

... the sight of all that water rushing, rolling and jumping its way through the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was well worth the climb down the 164 steps.<br><br> The 24 years wait to visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge was long but it was worth every minute. The sheer forces of nature at work has to be seen to believe . No picture or video does the sight justice. <br ...

... As we watched, construction equipment was busily tearing down the last walls of the central monastery building, completing the disneyfication of the monastery and surrounding enclave. We saw only a few old sandy traces of the original monastery and monk city. <br><br>Inside the monastery are two large Buddhas. We imagine a 3rd one will sit inside the rebuilt central building when it is finished. Inside the left tower is a wall painted with the life of ...

... set, we set out to explore the town. We rented some bicycles in the early afternoon and set out on a ride to find a traditional Chinese village that was located about 8km from the town. About 6kms down the road we had a little setback, as Priya was sideswiped by another bicycle and lost a fight with the pavement. With the skin missing from one side of her face, we braved on down the road for about 10kms in the wrong direction. Once we ...

... no heating. I'm freezing. I watch for a while the glorious torch relay on TV. It goes through the streets of Shangri-la, cordoned by number of minority looking people. There is a large group of cheerleaders that follow the torch (and the camera), yelling repeatedly a slogan, but not sounding very convincing at all. I'm too cold. I decide to go out to a coffee shop or something. I turn round the corner and the most amazing sight revels. The square is moving ...

... one of the next places I travel) as it fits the bill a bit better - they'll do anything to drum up tourism! Anyways, back to some cultural peculiarities - as I might have previously mentioned the rural people aren't so used to bus transports and get travel sickness as a result. It isn't common to see 50% + of the bus throwing up on route, usually out of the window. However, we were lucky enough to have one guy decide to spew all down the aisle ...

... you get the idea, anyway eventually we were shown the correct road. It was a really nice town but we were heading the next day to Qiautou to do a hike called Tiger Leaping Gorge so didn't have too much time to look around. What we did see we liked, and if we have more time we could have done the town and its surrounds justice. The hike was really good, we thought it might be a bit too touristy, but we hardly saw another tourist at all. We ...

... ones. There is a big serac forest in the areas with an elevation of over 4500 meters in Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. In the daytime, with the rise of temperature, the snow covering the serac melts and ice with light green color appears. Together with bright sunshine and blue sky, the seracs will shine with green color. Thus, we can see the spectacular sight of "Green Snow." Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiao Xia) It is on the Jinsha River of the upper reaches of the ...

... klimmen).  Onderweg heb je verschillende guesthouses, waar we de eerste avond Yatze gespeeld hebben en de tweede was Herman zijn 35ste verjaardag.  Daarvoor hebben Veerle, Kim en Rembert een complete verassingsknalfuif in mekaar gestoken, om Herman een verjaardag te geven die hij niet snel zal vergeten. De dag nadien was het met pijn in het hart en het hoofd (en de voeten), dat we terug naar Zhongdian moesten om de laatste inkopen te doen voor de tocht naar Lhasa.

... to the malaria pill but it subsided by the time we arrived. The flight to Zhongdian was awful. I hate the small planes as you feel every bump. Coming into land was a nightmare! There are mountains all around so the turning circles were incredibly tight and constantly up and down. It's the closest I have ever come to being sick on a flight. Dave wasn't so lucky and managed to be sick on the ...