Huan Tai Hotel Shangri La Shangri-La

... buses are cheap. The Chinese are excellent
train engineers. The train we took from Beijing from Tanguu covered
160km in 50 minutes. It had a top speed of 295kph.
It was electric not maglev.



Language- Most Chinese do not speak
English. If they do it is most likely they are young. A phrase book
with English and Chinese pinyin and Chinese characters is most
helpful.

... 1513;דות תירס ואורז.
האתר הוא תופעת טבע, באמצע שלוחה שנראי 14; כמו עשרות אחרות שעברת 97; בדרך, נ ...

... and hunting equipment shops.

We spent one night there and two things stand out.

1/ A Buddhist temple overlooking the town that had a rotating (!) golden tower
2/ A hundred old tibettan women dancing in a circle in the town centre. When I'm their age, if I can still pull off some moves like them I'll be a happy man.

The night was pretty uneventful and we were more than ready to leave Shangri-La the following morning.

... but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of ...

... beer and staring up at the stars. Day 6 - Tiger Leaping Gorge - Wednesday, December 3th With 10 hours of sleep under our wings we jumped out of bed, ate breakfast and headed off for the final stretch of our hike. We spent several hours following a herder and her sheep as they criss-crossed along the gorge, and arrived at Tina's Guesthouse just in time for lunch and a hike down to the river. The hike down to the river was probably the most ...

... our snickers and made our way up. When we did finally reach the top of our peak, the view took our breathes away. The views just didn't seem real and now the clouds had cleared we could see the snow on the caps of the mountains. We paid our 5 yen to take a picture at the famous peak and the lady kindly gave us a bag of strawberry's which she was not going to sell that day and they would go off. Strawberries are on sale everywhere ...

... de moi, les conversations, etc. Inutile de preciser que nous nous livrons a des festins dans des endroits qui auraient �t� difficiles d'acces pour moi. Hier soir nous avons pass� une tres etrange soir�e. Elle avait commenc� par le depecage sauvage d'un agneau entier roti, sur le poele de notre guesthouse, puis s'etait poursuivie dans un bar d'expatri�s. Alors que nous descendons des whiskies avec Y., un type s'assois a cot� de nous. Francais, romancier et anthropologue ...

... to the monastery around there, it was quiet in repair. Goats and chickens sat around the center. There were tons of prayer flags that went on up the hill. On the way there we got the tourist charge, and we had a photo shoot because I thought if we have to pay I might as well get something. It was a great little family. On the way back down the kids were playing in the mud. They ...

... as Z'dian. Although the scenery is lovely, there are clearly other parts of Yunnan Province that are more like the fabled city. Tiger Leaping Gorge and surroundings, including much of the road north towards Z'dian, is wonderful.

Ruud and I had a good few days with a couple groups of Americans here in Z'dian. One turned 25 and we celebrated with drinking games and a 2-story, double-inning cake fight. As the old man of the ...

... of our hikes, but Vinny is always snapping shots on his so check out their pics as well. There are options to leave your own comments so please tell them to be nicer to me. We're off to Tiger Leaping Gorge in a day or two so it might be a few more days before I can give you a new story. Untill then, take it easy and let me know what you think of this site. Adam