Songtsam Hotel Shangri-La

We didnt have time to visit anywhere today bso we made sure we had everything packed and set about organising our trip to Deqin. When we arrived at the bus station we were told we couldnt book tickets for the next day because the prices would be ...

... confidence. Fortunately a helpful soul asked where we wanted to be, qualmed our reservations, and put us on the number 1 bus to the Old Town.


We checked into our accommodation, into a nice big and comfortable room. Unfortunately there was a lot of construction work going on in the area (and in the hostel), which didn't hep to recreate the Shangri-La magic. In fact the construction went on 24hrs a day. The water and ...

... of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition

The county was formerly called Zhongdian County (Chinese: 中甸县 Zhōngdià n Xià n) but was renamed after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the James Hilton ...

not finished,

notes:

took van from lijiang. went with 2 dutch guys, 2 isreali girls, and 1 spaniard. Great time hiking with all of them. 3 days in the hike two nights. sky ladder down to the bottom. refused to pay the guys on the ladder. went all the way to the river. spaniard helped with spanish. was very free with his standing near the edge. singing havagaveeda ...

... hike I have ever experienced. The way down was reasonable until the 2000 ft slope reaching down from the right of the trail turned turned into a 4000 ft cliff. It took us 50 minutes to make it down to the river, and on several occasions we thought about stopping -- just due to fear that there was no way we would be able to climb the 1000m back up to the road. However, it was well worth the effort when we made it down to the river and the ...

198 km (or 4 hours by bus) from Lijiang to Shangri-La (as it has been renamed 2001 from Zhongdian by the Chinese authorities, in a move probably to attract more tourists to "Minor Tibet", Shangrila is a fictional place first mentionned by British author James Hilton is his 1933 novel "Lost Horizon").Since then Shangri-La has become synonymous with an earthly paradise, a permanently ...

... monopolisera la conversation sur un mode pseudo phlosophique illumin�. La soir�e se poursuivra par de longues parties de billard puis par l'�pilogue derriere le bar en compagnie du fou, d'une chinoise newyorkaise option chaudiere, d'un moldave a la tete de trafficant d'armes et d'un "artiste" sculpteur anglais vivant a SangriLa. Aujourd'hui nous retournons a Lijiang. J'ai chang� mes plans et vais passer une semaine de plus en Chine. Nous abandonnons K. qui doit retourner en ...

Got back from our trek and showered and went straight to the Sexy Tractor...a foreign owned bar. We parked it there from about 7pm to 1am before moving on to Bar Street for some vodka and dancing. Anita enjoyed a "meat pulp pizza" as her after bar snack! so good. We had a great night chatting and drinking and really bonding as a group! HA! we were joined by Aussie Jeff who is stuck on ...

... I shook my cane at them and said things like "damned, infernal kids!" and "careful, your eyes!". Luckily, no one (and none of our rooms) had any permanent damage.

I failed to mention another milestone in my previous post. My journey so far has brought me in contact with a number of the great rivers of the world thus far - the Nile, Danube and Mekong are the foundations of local economies in each region. I added another to ...

Tiger leaping gourge Zhongdian or sangrila... So arriving in Zhongdian marks the return to the more heavily traveled tourist trail. The town is alot bigger than those of the last few days. There is a new part on one side and when you enter the old part you get the impresion every building is used as a souveneer shop or hostel. Walking a bit further in though you reach where people actually live and is like a plesent little vilage which ends as the hills ...