Tibetan Family Hostel Shangri-La

... but scary in the dark!!! I spent the journey regretting that decision & wished we had gone the other road to Shangri La but we made it safely!!






Got into a guesthouse in the Old Town for 20 yuan each in a dormitory. It is a very old rustic 140 year old wooden house. The air outside ...

... Tibetan home. They have a model farm and teach people modern, more-efficient farming techniques in ways that protect the environment. The second lodge had rooms and was a jumping off point for exploring the area. Both required you to hire cars / jeeps and guides which made it too expensive than I wanted. But I like the fundamental idea of socially responsible capitalism.

Overall, Shangri-La was quite pleasant and relaxing. Fairly Tibetan and Deqin but becoming a big city.

... trail is pretty well maintained but very remote so it is easy to get scared that you might not be going the right way. However, the locals were kind enough to spray-paint red arrows every now and then to assure you that you were on the right path.

The hike starts out pretty smoothly. We had a guy, we named Lou, follow us with his donkey. He kept telling us that the hike was going to get really hard and we would want to hire his ...

... our tickets to Kunming. We couldn't help but to notice the full wall advert, featuring horrifically graphic photos of bus accidents and the resulting casualties. I suppose it was designed to increase awareness and road safety, but as a helpless passenger it did nothing but freak me out. What do they propose I do? I reach for the seatbelt, and grab nothing but air... My only option would be to give the driver a slap, but I feel this ...

... of candidates across the Himalayas. You come down ******* a lot of writers for their faux quests for Shangri-La. What's the problem with that? Poor research, in a nutshell. There are some very flaky accounts out there where the research is all scrambled up. The Chinese authorities, for instance, base their claims on the writings of American botanist Joseph Rock for National Geographic. But Joseph Rock never wrote up the regions of Zhongdian or Deqin in ...

... we visited. The whole town is made out of a dark-colored wood, and it is a very high altitude, so it was considerably cooler than the other places we visited in China (sweatshirt weather instead of tank top). In our hostel, a group of high schoolers from a different part of China was staying on a school trip, and they had never been to such a high altitude before. Chinese people tend to be hypochondriacs, so each evening they ...

... es am meisten drauf hatten, da sie die Schritte am besten beherrschten. Mich hat erstaunt, mit wieviel Freude die junge Generation doch die Traditionen weiter fuehrt. Auszerdem war ich noch in zwei Kloestern. Ein Kleines mit herrlicher Aussicht, das mit hunderten Gebetsfahnen umgeben war, die im Wind flatterten und heute in einem Groszen, in dem etwa 600 Moenche leben. Dieses grosze Kloster ist 350 Jahre alt. Fast alle Gebaeude sind noch so ...

... to see photos of the Dalai Lama ( for the first time). We end up chatting to a monk, who wants to practice his english and asks to be friends. When he mentions the 'contract' we look at each other suprisingly, then realise he means 'contact' ...for his mobile! He is quite sweet , but cant seem to understand us when we ask him questions on life as a monk, he asks for our email addresses...I wonder if we can get him on facebook???

... just carried on past them as as far as we were concerned we had paid to enter the park so why should be pay again...On the way down - before it started getting really steep - a chinese man raced passed us, it didnt take a genious to work out that he was somehow going to stop us from going further unless we paid up but we wernt sure so we carried on. Sure enough we got to a part where they had made a gate which had glass cemented to the man made concrete arch it sat in. The ...

... we were rewarded with the beaming happy smiles of the Tibetan people. We returned back to the old town on the local bus again, and decided to have another look around the old town. Armed with a different map, we actually came across Harmony Guest house! Except that it was closed. Continuing on, we climbed a hill to reach a giant golden prayer wheel that we had seen lit up from the guesthouse the night before. It had appeared to rotate occasionally which we had though must ...