Tibetan Area Hostel Shangri-La

... at Tina's we met up with the 5 chinese led by Sabrina from Shanghai & jumped in the mini van to head via the backroads north towards Shangri La. Alison joined us & we dropped her off at Ha Ba a tiny little village where she was staying. Nath & I had decided we would go as far as the next village - Bai ...

... a receptive mind-set after being charged such a high entrance fee. Speak some nice junk, have some nice prayer sessions and the lamas can live very nicely. Maybe they can allow marriage and women. Get a really sweet life for the lamas. Why shouldn't lamas live well?<br><br>I googled this and monks sometimes can marry. But in the Yellow Hat (Dalai Lama) sect, they must take a vow of celibacy. "In the old days it was customary for senior monks to keep young boys and girls as drombos ...

After a rather heady bus journey, touring the edges of cliffs and looking out over great plateaus, grazed by cows and yaks at such high altitudes, we waited at the station for our pickup to our guesthouse....Harmony Guesthouse (quite fitting for Shangri La, i'm sure you'll agree).<br>The car could only take us so far. So on foot we climbed the cobbled streets of the old town. Far smaller than Lijiang, far fewer people, and in a way a purer more condensed ...

... in the warmth for a week or two. I was half relieved to hear that the road to Deqin was snowed under, meaning I had no possibility of getting there... Guilt free chickening out! Anyway, I'm happy to report that my full day here was a great success, and totally worth the discomforts it required. Until a decade or so ago, Zhongdian was a small village/town near the border with Tibet and was largely off the tourist radar... However, some ...

... a number of guidebooks to Shambhala. I think the Shangri-La guidebook fits into this genre. There are a number of reasons for writing this guidebook-as a new way of looking at Tibetan culture in the Himalayas, and to examine the various claims made about discovery of the real Shangri-La. You quote André Malraux as saying, "Every adventurer starts out as a mythomanic." What does he mean by that? We develop romantic visions about certain travel destinations ...

... of Tibet. Over 600 monks live there. And we just kinda walked around town. The last 2 days were were on a backpack in Tiger Leaping Gorge, which is among the deepest gorges in the world I guess. It was beautiful! The mountains were really green, and then some were rocky and snow-capped. I'll try and upload pictures, but the Internet is kinda slow, so it's hard...Anyway I think the best part about this hike is the guest ...

... from that, we had a fantastic hotpot dinner and watched the locals dancing in the main square. This happens every night between 8 and 9, old and young, men and women, with some who know the dance steps and some who haven't a clue. I'll try and upload a video of it at some point, it's well worth a watch. The next morning we decide to escape the freezing cold of the plateau and head back to LiJiang once more.

16/09 Hel We arrive in Shangrila-la a little dejected after leaving Tibet, however arrive to find its a cute little village with an old town full of cobbled streets, wooden houses with slate rooves and red lanterns everywhere. As its still quite a high altitude it is still cold, but very warm in the day! The local Naxi women wear colourful costume, at first I think it is for the benefit of the tourists, but soon realise that it isnt ...

... all catch up. Our plan for the day ws to trek on until we reached Halfway house which was another 5 hours on from The Naxi family house so we saddled back up with the men and mules in tow to march onward and upward. From around this point i decided to walk at a more slower pace with rob and martha as the hardest part of the trek was looming "28 bends".. This part of the walk takes you steeply up 600m to 2670m and is quite a climb i can tell you. It wasnt the hardest climb i ...

... buildings that are sweeping cities all over the place. The old town retains some of the old tibetan architecture, but is also being redeveloped with new "old style" buildings replacing the old town - preparing it for another tourist town like Lijiang we suspect. Settling in, we had some dinner and as then went into the main square in the old town to see the locals dancing. It was quite a spectacle that apparantly happens every night. It seemed quite an authentic local get ...