happysheep's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries

happysheep's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member happysheep on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/happysheep en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:04:53 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com Naxi kid selected for Childrens Day — Kunming, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258380201/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258380201/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258380201/tpod.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:04:53 -0500 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

Good to see someone acknowledged for trying to maintain their culture and heritage and language, and keep Lijiang free from trash, but how about the other players do their part - ie, schools, government, etc?http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/15/content_12461399.htm
]]> Dwarf kingdom in Kunming — Kunming, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258379833/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258379833/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1258379833/tpod.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:57:46 -0500 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

One of the new attractions just out of Kunminghttp://www.edmontonsun.com/news/world/2009/11/11/11713261.html
]]> UFOs are everywhere — Kunming, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824378/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824378/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824378/tpod.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:42:21 -0500 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

A report from Global Times:Aliens are living in Yunnan, Heilongjiang and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to a professor of physics at Yunnan University."The complicated terrain of these places makes them perfect forobservation of us earthlings," said Zhang Yifang, director of theKunming UFO Research Association.The Yunnan capital city accounts for one-tenth of all sightings inthe province – more than 400 since 1972 when a large group of people inXishan district reported a shiny brass bowl-like object, he said.Zhang, 62, was just one of hundreds of sky watchers who convened todiscuss unexplained phenomena at the October 31-November 16 Kunming UFOForum, perhaps the only place in China where "have you seen thesaucers?" is a preferred greeting.The only reason why Yunnan has so many UFO sightings is there are so many UFO enthusi-asts, the critics argue.They are wrong, Zhang insists. The aliens are living right here among us and he knows it."Yunnan is a mysterious place, full of oddities," he said. "Thealiens' intelligence is beyond us. They must have a good reason tochoose to stay in Yunnan."No solid evidence proves they are in Yunnan, he concedes."But I believe they are nice and they have no intention of attackingus," he said. "Perhaps they are shape-shifters camouflaged as humanbeings or they have manufactured human-like robots to watch us."How many aliens or robots, or when they first came to settle, he could not say.UFOs are an "old" topic in China: the elderly took up about half theseats at the forum hosted by Zhang on Saturday, a half-empty hall withcapacity for about 200. Zhang joined the Kunming UFO ResearchAssociation in 1980 and has shared sightings with associations fromother provinces."Many people in China believe aliens exist," he said, "but only a few UFO lovers devote themselves to doing the research."Zhang's son, Zhang Shu, 29, is one of the youngest members of theUFO association. His passion for research has been deeply influenced byhis father."Young people don't really like to spend time researching somethingwhen you don't even know if it exists," he said. "It feels like you areresearching the air.""What's more, if they tell their friends they are doing UFO research, they would be mocked incessantly."Astronomer: I saw it comingZhang Zhousheng, 52, a former astronomer at the Yunnan Observatory,is famous for his prediction in June 1981 that "We shall all see a UFOin late July."On July 24, 1981, millions of people in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan andYunnan Province witnessed a flying luminous spiral-shaped body appearin the sky, according to Zhang."For many, the UFO is an unidentified flying object," Zhang said,"but for me, it is identified because I can calculate when they arecoming."As an astronomer, Zhang can frequently be found spending hisevenings peering into the night sky from his backyard telescope. Hefirst got involved in UFOs in the early '70s when he saw somethingflying across the skies of Sichuan Province."I can still remember how shocked I was when I saw the spiral object moving across the sky for about five minutes," he said.Since then, he has been drawn deeper and deeper into the study ofUFOs. His initial prediction was covered by dozens of newspapers andmagazines and he later published articles explaining his theories ofprediction.But now Zhang asserts that was the first and last time he will makea public prediction as people won't stop asking him about it."UFO prediction is different from meteor shower," Zhang said. "I canpredict when a UFO comes, but I cannot be sure they are in the rightlocation where we can see them."Still, he confided he remains quite confident. "I know more than anyone else in the world about prediction," he said."Sometimes witnesses call me and tell me that they saw a flyingobject," Zhang said. "I always stop them right in the middle of thesentence as I know exactly what they are going to say because Ipredicted it," he said.He left the Yunnan Observatory in 2005 and started up his own lucrative industrial crane business."What I have seen is maybe a UFO or some phenomenon in astronomythat we have not figured out yet," he said. "Anyway, no matter what itis, I will continue to study it after retirement.""After all, it's different here from western UFO lovers who can get money from the govern-ment to do research."We have to spend our own money on it."He keeps seeing themTwenty-nine-year-old Yang Zheng is one of the youngest members ofthe Kunming UFO Research Association and also one of the most frequentwitnesses of a UFO."Altogether six times, once in Beijing and five times in Yunnan," he said. "But I don't know why I keep seeing them."His first encounter dates back to 20 years ago when he was at hisaunt's home. He spotted a strange red object in the sky through thewindow.He immediately checked the popular Chinese children's book 100,000 Whys, but found no answer.His father told him "it was just a plane". Tired of disappointments,he decided to find out himself and started posting his eyewitnessreports online and doing research on UFO cases."The more I study, the more I feel like my belief is changing," he said.The most dramatic case he has investigated was in November 2006 whenthousands of villagers in Zhenyuan Yi, Hani and Lahu Autonomous Countyof Yunnan Province claimed to have witnessed seven flickering whitehemispherical-shaped objects hovering right over one cadre's yard fornearly two hours.It was said the objects' shapes kept changing. Small village, bigmouth. Word soon spread that something was stirring in the cadre'sbackyard and more and more villagers came to see. They started pursuingthe circling objects.Then, suddenly, the lights disappeared.Yang conducted an on-the-spot investigation, talking to villagersand cadres and asking them to draw pictures of what they had seen."Even though I cannot prove it was real, I tend to believe theyweren't lying," Yang said. "Because only well-trained actors could lieso naturally."After he finished the investigation, he headed back to Beijing. Itwas there that a UFO showed up right in front of him -- again.One evening when he was playing an online game at home he suddenlyfelt excited, like something was going to happen. He turned off hiscomputer, walked out of his home into the courtyard and looked at thesky. He saw a huge cloud in the sky, nothing more."Then I said ‘Stop toying with me! Please come out. I swear I won'ttell anyone else!' and the moment I finished the sentence, I saw a redspark coming from the cloud. It was like they heard what I said."No experts from the association could say why Yang keeps seeing all these UFOs, but he believes it must mean something."All the research and investigations I have done are not to provethe existence of aliens," he said. "Quite the opposite. It helps us tounderstand more about ourselves and the world around us."I think that is the message they want to send to me."Saucer for sale: 20,000 yuanCheng Weiguo, 40, came to the UFO forum with many questions and a mission to sell his design concept for a flying saucer.Soon after the opening of the forum, he could not wait to displayhis efforts and kept raising his hand during the speech of Wang Sichao,astronomer and ufologist."Yes, that gentleman who keeps raising his hand for a long time," Wang said."Dear professor, I was wondering if there is any way we could get rid of gravity?" Cheng said."Then we need to discuss why you want to get rid of gravity," Wang replied.Cheng introduced his energy-saving, anti-gravity flying saucer, or "the future of human transportation," as he put it."Unlike the plane, it can fly in all directions and stop whereveryou want," he said. "I believe it will become the most popular personaltransportation for a family-of-three in the future.""And a small one only costs 20,000 yuan," he said loudly.The audience began muttering, one professor saying in a low voice: "Anti-gravity? He must be kidding."Asked how much for the design, Cheng said it had taken him "years ofstudying flying saucers". He'd only sell for a "good price".Cheng told the professor he was a real UFO lover. Wherever a UFO shows up, he's there in a Kunming minute."I waited half a month once in the summer of 1995 in Guizhou Province to see a UFO," he said.The cool audience response did not dampen Cheng's passion. He turnedon his PC and displayed his three-dimensional design to the crowd."Everyone come look! See? It can fly in all directions. Isn't my idea amazing?" he said."Please bring us a small model next time, then we will talk about it," said Zhang Yifang.OutsidersThe hardcore fans crowded Ma Ying out of any discussion with expert ufologists, he said."UFO fans are a passionate, curious and hard-working group of peoplewhose minds are preoccupied by beer-drinking and day-dreaming when theyare not preoccupied by unidentified objects," the 37-year-old Kunmingengineer said.Although not a member himself, Ma hoped the forum promotescommunication about sightings among UFO associations across the country.The UFO forum is "very meaningful" to combine with astronomy, saidWang Sichao, a researcher at the Zijingshan Astronomical Observatory inNanjing, Zhejiang Province."UFOs may be just a flight of fancy, but astronomy is trustworthy,"he said. "The forum successfully attracted amateur astronomers who havemade a great contribution to the collection of UFO sightings."
]]> 10,000 crowd hot springs — Hubei, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824023/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824023/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1257824023/tpod.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:35:14 -0500 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Hubei, China

Students from local collegesbathe in a hotspring in Xianning city, central China's Hubei province,November 7, 2009. A total of 10,012 students bathed simultaneously inthe city's seven hotsprings, setting a new Guinness World Record.
]]> Happiest orphanage in the world — Zhongdian, Yunnan, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1256016904/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1256016904/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1256016904/tpod.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:38:10 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Zhongdian, Yunnan, China

Nice story about an orphanage in Zhongdian, which I've been visiting for the last 4 or so years. ShangriLa and Lhasa, China - Fifty years ago, the parents of Tendol Gyalzur were two of about 85,000 Tibetans killed during the suppression of the uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet that pushed the Dalai Lama into exile. Only 7 years old at the time, Mrs. Gyalzur grew up feeling hatred toward the occupiers who'd orphaned her. Yet today, she works closely with the Chinese government as the founder and director of Tibet's first private orphanage. "WhenI was young, I thought the Chinese were without heart, without love,"says Gyalzur during an interview at her second orphanage, in Shangri-La(also known as Zhongdiàn), a town in China's southwestern YunnanProvince. "Now, after starting this orphanage, I think that there aremany Chinese who love. The government cooperates with our project andthis, I think, is a kind of love." Gyalzur says she has learned acceptance and howto forgive from the children at her orphanages. They call one anotherbrother and sister, yet they come from seven ethnic groups, includingTibetan and China's majority ethnicity, Han, groups who fought in 1959and continue to harbor animosity to this day. "Many people – the Chinese, the Tibetans – can learn from our children how to live in peace," Gyalzur says. Followingthe 1959 uprising, Gyalzur and thousands of other Tibetans, includingthe Dalai Lama, fled to India. There, she lived in a refugee camp untilshe was transferred to an orphanage in Germany, where she met herfuture husband, a fellow Tibetan refugee. In the 1970s, the two movednear Zurich, Switzerland, and started a family. In 1990, Gyalzur returned to Tibet for the firsttime. She met two children rummaging through the trash in Lhasa,Tibet's capital. She brought them to a restaurant for a meal, but themanager refused to seat them. Gyalzur insisted and he relented. "It wasthe first time in my life that I realized that the only thing I wantedto do was to fight for the rights of these abandoned children," shesays. She returned home to her husband and two sons in Switzerland. But, as an orphan herself, the memories of the orphan children in Tibet haunted her. She vowed to return. With help from the Tibet Development Fund, along with about $28,000 from her savings, her husband's pension, and donations and loans from family and friends, she opened Tibet's first private orphanage in 1993 in Lhasa. Theorphanage began with six children. Sixteen years later, 57 childrenlive there and 27 have left to begin careers and families of their own.In 1997, she opened a second orphanage in her husband's hometown ofShangri-La, where 54 children now live. Another 63 children of nomadic herders live in a third center in western Sichuan Province, which Gyalzur started in 2002. The three centers operate on $280,000 annually from private donors in the United States and Europe. Entering the orphanage in Shangri-La on a weekend, one finds children playing basketball in the front courtyard, while teenagers cook in the kitchen or wash clothes. They welcome visitors with group songs and dances in a new performing arts space. On a weekday at the orphanage in Lhasa, children under 6 are studying English and Chinese. Older children are at school. Foreignuniversities send students to volunteer at Gyalzur's orphanage inShangri-La. The Lonely Planet guidebook recommends it as one of 10organizations fostering awareness of Tibet and aiding the Tibetanpeople. "I have been helping Tendol since 2001, and she is one of themost amazing, selfless women I have ever met," says Rick Montgomery,executive director of Seattle-based Global Roots. He first met Gyalzur while traveling in China.Her work inspired him to start Global Roots, which supports charitiesacross the world. Since 2001, Global Roots has provided food, blankets,kitchen supplies, and bicycles to Gyalzur's charity. In 2008, Mr.Montgomery visited the center in Shangri-La and delivered winterclothes to each of Gyalzur's children, including new shoes and winterparkas. Though inspiring, Gyalzur's work also strained her family life. Her elder son, now an adult, says he resented his mother when she disappeared for months to work in China. "We were quite angry with her," says Songtsen Gyalzur. While his mother was away, he helped his father cook and sell <i>shabales – Tibetan beef patties – outside a mall in Zurich to raise money for the orphanage. "All my friends went skiing or ice-skating on weekends, and I was making <i>shabales for the orphans," he now chuckles. Mrs.Gyalzur's family eventually came around. Her husband quit his factoryjob in Switzerland and moved to China. Last year, her son sold hisSwiss real estate company to assist as well. Songtsen started a carrepair shop in Shangri-La and has invested about $50,000 in tworestaurants that provide jobs for eight adult orphans from his mother'scenters. "They look at my parents like they're their parents, so in a way they're like my brothers and sisters," Songtsen says during an interview at So Ya La, one of his Tibetan cafes. Most children at Gyalzur's centers arrived via government agencies who contact her when a parentless child is reported to authorities. YishiDolma was 10 when she was found 17 years ago living alone in the streetabout 50 miles outside Lhasa. Moving into the orphanage "was likehaving a family and a home," says Ms. Yishi Dolma, who is the full-time"house parent" at the Shangri-La orphanage. The Lhasa orphanage alsohas two house parents who live on-site. "Don't feel sad that we don't have parents, because we don't think of it like that," says Duoma Lamu, a 16-year-old at Gyalzur's center in Shangri-La who hopes to attend university in a few years. "Tendol is our mother." • http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1019/p07s01-lign.htmlmore info at http://www.tendol-gyalzur-tibet.ch/cms/website.php
]]> Real taste in Lijiang — Lijiang, Yunnan, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255941501/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255941501/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255941501/tpod.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:41:03 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Lijiang, Yunnan, China

By Liu Jun     BEIJING, Oct. 15 -- I almostswallowed my tongue at the first bite. It must have been decades sinceI last tasted such fresh and delicious home-raised chicken. We weresitting along a country road beneath a giant poplar tree, hungrilyfishing for chunks of the fowl boiling in an old-fashioned hotpot.     Our friend, a native of Lijiang,Yunnan province, had merely told us we'd see some rapeseed flowers inTai'an, a township famed for enormous peaches and wild cranes.    Anhour's drive took us across the mountains from Lijiang to slopes aglowwith yellow rapeseed flowers. But little did we expect such amouth-watering treat at a very humble-looking restaurant.     We had plucked some red-skinnedpotatoes from the fields. They tasted sweet and mild. So did thecabbage we threw into the soup.          It was a highlight of my family'srecent trip to Lijiang in Southwest China. We were lucky to spend 10days with our friend's family, which allowed us to catch glimpses oflocal life.     As I'm not much of a gourmet, mylong years of dwelling in the city has sharpened my yearning for real,natural nourishment.     I've always believed that howeverglobalized we might be, a person's cultural identity is rooted in thefood he or she grew up eating.     While the innumerable bars and cafsin Lijiang attract most Western visitors, our friend always led us toinconspicuous eateries where local cuisine offered pleasant surprises.     Jidou, a small bean that looks like a chicken's eye, is a magical specialty here. Its boiled flour makes a faintly sweet porridgethat can be cooled to form a jelly which is then sliced into chunks orstrips. Mixing the jelly with hot peppers, coriander, fried peanuts,Chinese onions, soy sauce and vinegar creates the locals' favoritesnack - jidou liangfen.     The bean jelly can also be fried with meat and vegetables to make a hot dish. Or you can dip the fried jelly into pepper.     Frying seems to be a much lovedcooking method of the locals. In the maze of alleys and streamscrisscrossing the old Dayan town in central Lijiang, residents sitbehind a wok set over a stove and surrounded by an array of dishes,ready to fry anything, including jelly bean, bean curd, xueguanchang(sausage filled with yak blood and rice), potatoes and othervegetables.     Having spent most of my childhood in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, I'm a diehard fan of mixian (rice noodles).     As we climbed to the second floor ofa restaurant in Dayan, the narrow, steep staircase shuddered andgroaned. But the food and the view were well worth the climb.     After pouring quail's egg, fishball slices, tremella, chives and rice noodles into chicken soup, wewaited for the guoqiao mixian ("across the bridge" rice noodle) tosmell.     Outside of the wood-carved windows,I spotted a black-and-white puppy, dozing off at a bar across thestream. Throngs of tourists clutching The Lonely Planet travelguidebooks stepped over the puppy to tuck into steaks or mugs ofcoffee.          We sampled yak beef (chewier thancow beef), potato slices fried with preserved sonchus (a sour and spicydish that became my favorite) and others tasty treats.     For our 4-year-old son, who getsteary from even one bite of spicy food, we ordered some Lijiang baba, asticky deep-fried pancake stuffed with sweet mashed bean.     Taking a child on a journey isnever easy, especially when it comes to food. I've heard that manyparents from northern China had to yield to their children's wailingand find "the best food in Lijiang" at KFC. What a pity.     Our son surprised us during thetrip to Suhe, a quiet town about 15 minutes ride from Lijiang. Althoughhe usually shies away from vegetables, he happily munched on a carrotlike Bugs Bunny. And he would have even chomped down the long greenleaves had we not stopped him.     While booming tourism has taughtthe Dayan to overdress herself to lure customers, Suhe is an innocentbeauty just waking from a centuries-long slumber of a self-sufficientagricultural life.     The streams that zigzag throughSuhe are crystal clear, as if they'd just run down the mighty JadeDragon Snow Mountain. Local people harvest tomatoes, cucumbers, cornand fruits from the fields, plunking them into bamboo baskets they thendrop into the streams for storage.     We found a quiet restaurant off themain street and spent the whole afternoon swilling tea, pullingvegetables from the stream and debating which dog was most likeable.     Attending our friend's familygathering was another highlight of our trip. Over the past few years,most local residents have moved out of the small Dayan town to settlein newly built apartment complexes.     Our friend led us to an uncle'shouse built according to Naxi style. It had a black tiled roof withflying eaves, a brick cat perched atop the front gate to ward off evil,and bougainvilleas and other flowers in a spacious courtyard containinga well.     Soon, dozens of people arrived, filling the courtyard with laughter and music.     While young women helped with cookingand setting the five or so tables, men played guitar, flute, piano andother instruments. It seems the Naxi people still follow a traditionaccording to which women toil in the fields and attend to householdchores while men become educated scholars.     Our friend's mother, who plays thebamboo flute and the 26-stringed guzheng, said such gatherings arecalled hua cong and used to be occasions to discuss family issues andpool money to help those in need.   Today, our friend's retired parents attend suchgatherings almost every week. In addition to relatives, theirclassmates, colleagues and other friends also sponsor such events.     "Today, people are very busy andthe city is growing bigger. We need such gatherings to keep in touch,"said the old lady, who rose early every morning to buy fresh pumpkinsand mushrooms to make us lavish meals.     It's not easy to remember all thedishes, but a good part of the conversation was about fish: A biggerkind was caught in this lake this morning; another kind was from theriver, which was best prepared through simple steaming.     To me, they all tasted great, and together, they made our trip a wonderful memory.    (Source: China Daily)By Choo Waihong     BEIJING, Oct. 15 --Accustomed as I am to traditional Chinese cuisine with its regionalvariations, I was thrilled to find I could feast on delicious andwholesome foods while traveling across Yunnan.     I was pleasantly surprised to findon an almost daily basis wonderful and fresh homegrown or wild produce,prepared the way any ordinary farming family has been doing forcenturies.     Imaginemy initial surprise when walking along the picturesque alleyways of theUNESCO heritage site Lijiang city when a street vendor offered mesunflower seeds freshly dug out from a large sunflower pod cut from itsstalk that very morning. What better sustenance than to crack a softshell and bite into the fresh raw taste of a natural sunflower seed?     Or take the humble potato, grown byevery farming household in these parts and stored through the wintermonths to augment daily meals. Imaginative stall-holders at the localmarket turn the spud into delicious snacks, shoestring bundles fryinggently in a wok over coal fire nestling alongside roughly cut Frenchfries, next to a basketful of crispy thin slices of deep-fried potatochips liberally sprinkled with salt and chili powder.     I didn't realize rural Yunnan ismushroom country until I discovered how delicious and ubiquitous a wildmushroom hotpot is in touristy Lijiang. When asked by a waiter whichwild mushrooms I would like in my hotpot stock, I confessed that I hadnever seen such a dazzling array. Suffice to say, the boiling hotmlange of fungi soup was a feast for the senses.     I chanced upon a young farmerdisplaying a basketful of Matsutake mushrooms (song rong, pinemushrooms), telling me he had hand-picked them on a dawn trek throughthe pine forests rimming Lugu Lake northeast of Lijiang.     Matsutakes are revered as the "kingof mushrooms" in Japan. But the young man only wanted a tiny fractionof its Tokyo price for his morning labor.     My love of this rare delicacy wasrequited when I took a bunch to a home-stay caf and had it steamed inits own juices and barbequed with a separate order of garlic chips.     Having an egg for breakfast must bethe most banal first meal of the day anywhere in the world, but thisreached new heights for me in Yunnan. There were freshly laid chickeneggs for sure, but it was a peddler sitting by a rustic wooden bridgecutely named The Bridge for Lovers on the shore of Lugu Lake whosearray of eggs blew me away.     Here he was offering boiledpale-green duck eggs that contained more goodness than their chickencounterparts, as well as gigantic goose eggs each big enough to feedfour.     I found one of the best cooks at alakeside restaurant where the proprietor netted a live carp from herpond and effortlessly whipped up a lip-smacking fish stew.     She first fried garlic, ginger, dried red chili and pepper in oil coaxed from some fatty air-dried belly pork.     She then plunked in chunks of thefreshwater fish to simmer gently in a stock. She served the finishedproduct with a dipping sauce of chopped fresh garlic, cilantro, greenonions, dried red pepper flakes and salt moistened with a little of thesoup.     Every Frenchman or Chinese knowsthe sweet taste of frog legs, but when I spotted an item on the menucalled "beautiful ladies" at a bed-and-breakfast lodge run by a Mosuofamily, I had to ask what it was. The little girl helping out at theeatery replied: "Deep-fried frog skins - because they look like ladies'legs!" The crispy-crunchy snack made from leftover frog leg dishesturned out to be utterly delicious.     There are more surprises when yourtaste buds move up the animal chain. When you enter a friendly farmer'shome, you will be asked if you'd like a chicken or duck for lunch. Youranswer will mean life-and-death for the farm animal in question.     After I chose "chicken", a youngboy chased one down in the courtyard, which his father slaughtered witha knife and his mother cooked in a big cauldron of soup over a woodfire by the hearth. It was a most tummy-warming meal I have had in along time.     Another time, I saw an item on alocal restaurant menu called "wild chicken". Upon learning that itmeant wild pheasant, I had the chef make a soup prepared thetraditional Chinese way - that is, by slow boiling the whole wild fowlin a medicinal herbal broth.     The resulting fragrant golden stock floating with delicious meat is a culinary experience worth writing home about.     In Yunnan's countryside, you can veryeasily find natural foods that are wild or small-farm grown withoutencountering any processed or manufactured items pushed from a factoryconveyor belt.     And with very little effort, you can feast on wholesome foods anywhere, anytime, simply by eating what the locals eat.     Simple Yunnanese peasant fare easily qualifies as wholesome by any modern, trendy yardstick for healthy living.    (Source: China Daily)
]]> New national park in China? — Zhongdian, Yunnan, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940695/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940695/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940695/tpod.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:35:32 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Zhongdian, Yunnan, China

How are U.S. perceptions of China sadly out of date? One example lies in how China’s first national park was created. Chinahas over 2,500 nature reserves, but had no national parks until a fewyears ago. So The Nature Conservancy worked with the Yunnan provincialgovernment and the Diqing county governor to create China’s firstnational park — Potatso (Pudacuo) National Park,a Rocky-Mountain-National-Park-sized swath of land in the north part ofthe state where the government has invested heavily in a classic U.S.national park infrastructure — roads, tour buses, boardwalks,interpretive programs.  It was a bit of a head scratcher — the landscape looked like Yellowstoneand so did the roads, lodges, tour buses, stops and signs. But those incharge spent (borrowed) something north of $100 million U.S. on theinfrastructure and are generating a very large income stream to pay offthe loan. The Conservancy worked with them on the signage, design ofinfrastructure, land plan, etc. Oh yeah, they designated, designed,constructed, and implemented this new national park from what wasbasically lightly used high-country grazing land in a little over threeyears. Here’s the really interesting thing, though: TheDiqing county governor — not the central government — was the drivingforce behind all of this. He set aside the land, he borrowed the moneyand oversaw the design of the project, he pushed the idea with theYunnan provincial authorities, and he made the park happen. He did it so fast that two government ministries in Beijing arestill arguing about to whom the park belongs (even though it isadministered and managed by the Diqing county government, others want“credit”) and whether it can really be called a national park. Legendhas it that the Diqing governor (akin to a county commissioner in theUnited States) visited Yellowstone and said something like “this is theplace” — then came back to Yunnan and made it happen. Recently, I and officials for The Nature Conservancy in Chinawere in a room with a lot of Chinese government officials — Yunnanparks and wildlife deputies and secretaries, government think tankdirectors, and governors’ advisors. They had convened with theConservancy to talk about how to advance the idea of national parksthroughout China. The group in the room was trying to figure out how to get thenational government to embrace their concept of national parks topromote tourism, nature education, conservation and local economicdevelopment. It’s a bit like in the late 1990s in Colorado, whenAlamosa County commissioners petitioned then-U.S. Sens. Ken Salazar andWayne Allard to champion a new national park at the Great Sand Dunes. All this is an interesting illustration about how wrong most ofour perceptions of China are. We tend to think this is a place with oneauthoritarian government where all rules flow from the center, Beijing.Nothing could be further from the truth. And in that mistake lies alesson for conservation in China. <i>— Text by Charles Bedford<i>, Cool Green Science Blog
]]> Glacier going fast — Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940534/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940534/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255940534/tpod.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:23:00 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China

The Thaw at the Roof of the WorldBy ORVILLE SCHELLPublished: September 25, 2009 SPEAKING this week at the United Nations,President Hu Jintao of China declared that his country “fullyappreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change."As well it should. China is beginning to realize that it has a lot tolose from the carbon dioxide that the world so blithely emits into theearth’s atmosphere. Mr. Hu’s words made me think back toa day not long ago when I found myself on a platform 14,000 feet abovesea level, surrounded by throngs of Chinese tourists in colorfulparkas. A chairlift had brought us that much closer to the jagged peaksof Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the glacier that cascades down itsflank. People cheerfully snapped photos of the icy mass, seeminglyunaware of the disaster unfolding before them. Because ofclimate change, the roughly 1.7-mile-long Baishui Glacier No. 1 couldwell be one of the first major glacial systems on the Tibetan Plateauto disappear after thousands of years. The glacier, situated above thehonky-tonk town of Lijiang in southwest China, has receded 830 feetover the last two decades and appears to be wasting away at an evermore rapid rate each year. It is the southernmost glacier on theplateau, so its decline is an early warning of what may ultimatelybefall the approximately 18,000 higher-altitude glaciers in the GreaterHimalayas as the planet continues to warm. Because the TibetanPlateau and its environs shelter the largest perennial ice mass on theplanet after the Arctic and Antarctica, it has come to be known as “theThird Pole.” Its snowfields and glaciers feed almost every major riversystem of Asia during hot, dry seasons when the monsoons cease, andtheir melt waters supply rivers from the Indus in the west to theYellow in the east, with the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween,Mekong and Yangtze Rivers in between. (The glaciers on Jade Dragon SnowMountain contribute much of their water to the upper reaches of theYangtze River.) From a distance, Baishui Glacier No. 1 looks asimmovable as the defiant mountain above. In reality, it is a fluidfield of ice and rock in constant downward motion. Scientists speakabout the reactive behavior of these glaciers as if they were almosthuman. The Tibetan and Naxi peoples who inhabit this region treat them,and their mountain hosts, as embodiments of deities and spirits.Now, a growing number of glaciers are losing their equilibrium, ortheir capacity to build up enough snow and ice at high altitudes tocompensate for the rate of melting at lower ones. After surveying theHimalayas for many years, the respected Chinese glaciologist YaoTandong recently warned that, given present trends, almost two-thirdsof the plateau’s glaciers could well disappear within the next 40years. With the planet having just experienced the 10 hottest years onrecord, the average annual melting rate of mountain glaciers seems tohave doubled after the turn of the millennium from the two decadesbefore.Moreover, temperatures on the Tibetan plateau are risingmuch faster than the global average. A good portion of the area’sexisting ice fields has been lost over the past four decades, and therate of retreat has increased in recent years. The slow-motiondemise of Baishui Glacier No. 1 will have far-reaching consequences. Inthe short run, there will, of course, be an abundance of water. But inthe long run there will be deficits. These will have national securityconsequences as countries compete for ever scarcer water resourcessupplied by transnational rivers with as many as two billion users. It was not so long ago that the Tibetan Plateau was seen as a region oflittle consequence, save to those few Western adventurers drawn toremote regions that the early 20th-century Swedish explorer Sven Hedinonce called the “white spaces” on the map. Today, these white spacesplay a crucial role in Asia’s ecology.Sadly, it may be too lateto change the destiny of Baishui Glacier No. 1. But President Hu, bypromising this week to try to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit ofgross domestic product and to increase the share of non-fossil fuels inprimary energy consumption, signaled his willingness to act. Chinacan’t solve this problem alone, and President Obama’s scheduled visitto Beijing in November presents an opportunity to forge a bilateralalliance on climate change. After all, the ice fields in the majesticarc of peaks that runs from China to Afghanistan are melting in largepart because of greenhouse gases emitted thousands of miles away.OrvilleSchell, the director of the Asia Society’s Center on UnitedStates-China Relations, is the author of “Virtual Tibet: Searching forShangri-La From the Himalayas to Hollywood.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/opinion/26Schell.html?_r=1
]]> Old China in Lijiang- perfect for a wedding — Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255939726/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255939726/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1255939726/tpod.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:13:04 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China

Friday, 02 October 2009 Touristsvisiting the ancient city of Lijiang in south-west China were greetedby an incongruous sight this summer. In the shadow of the Jade Dragonmountain, an old Carthusian could be seen marching through the streetsalongside a traditional sedan chair carrying a Chinese woman. JeremyHunt, the shadow culture secretary, was marrying his Chinese partnerLucia in a pre-revolutionary ceremony."We went back to what a wedding would have been like pre-1949 - thatinvolved us going through the streets with a sedan chair carried by myfamily," Hunt says, recalling how he had to undergo a series of testsbefore his family could carry away his bride.These included singing, performing 25 press-ups and finding his bride's shoes."I had to do three kowtows to the sun," Hunt says. "OK, there were three kowtows to the Guardian as well," he says for balance.An affable figure, who embodies the so-called "Cameroon"modernisers, Hunt will become familiar to viewers over the next sixmonths as one of the main faces of the Conservative party. . . . he had a politically incorrect wedding.Laughing as he recalled his bride's journey through Lijiang on asedan chair, he says: "It was very un-PC; basically we were picking upa new piece of property for the family."http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/28/content_12122670.htm
]]> Southern silk route — Kunming, Yunnan Province, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1254472280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1254472280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/happysheep/shangri-la-la/1254472280/tpod.html Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:32:34 -0400 Finding Shangri-la. Searching for paradise on earth. With the help of dark chocolate & Marmite.

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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

from Indo-Asian News Service, this story about a book about a trade route:India was once a hub of ancient silk route (IANS Books) By Madhusree Chatterjee | 01 October 2009 | 9:10am <img src="http://india-forums.com/news/images/comnt_ico.gif" alt="Comment"> 0 Comment Around2,000 years ago, a loop of the ancient silk route, called the southernsilk road, linked Yunnan province of China to the northeastern parts ofIndia, says travel writer Sunita Dwivedi in her forthcoming book.Titled 'In Quest of Buddha: A Journey Along The Silk Road' and to bepublished by Rupa & Co, it chronicles Dwivedi's journeys along theroute in China, Central Asia and India. Around 2,000 years ago, a loop of the ancient silk route, called thesouthern silk road, linked Yunnan province of China to the northeasternparts of India, says travel writer Sunita Dwivedi in her forthcomingbook. Titled 'In Quest of Buddha: A Journey Along The Silk Road' and tobe published by Rupa & Co, it chronicles Dwivedi's journeys alongthe route in China, Central Asia and India.For travellers, the stretch that once formedthe busiest trade route between the Orient and the West is still asource of awe, as Dwivedi, a former journalist, says in her travelbook, which tries to focus on India as an important hub on this ancientcaravan route. 'We learn from various sources that a loop of this importantAsia-Europe route called the southern silk road arose in the southernprovinces of China running through Burma (now Myanmar), India andthrough the Uttarapath or the northern highroad to Taxila onwards toCentral Asia and Europe,' Dwivedi told IANS. It is believed that '2,000 years ago, this southern silk road linkedthe Yunnan province of China to the northeastern provinces of India,'she said. 'India was the hub of this southern silk route because of its links notonly with East and Southeast Asia but also because of its close tieswith Tibet and the Pamir region,' Dwivedi said. Apart from these external links, India had 'well-established internalroutes that criss-crossed its length and breadth as feeder roads to thesilk routes', she said. 'India could also provide important sea routes on its eastern andwestern coasts at the Bay of Bengal and the mouth of the Indus,' thewriter said. Dwivedi was inspired by Jonathan Tucker's book 'The Silk Road: Art and History'. 'I felt that I had to see this ancient road after reading the book.Though the route has lost itself in the mists of time in India, theChinese government has restored it as a tourist attraction. I visitedalmost all the tourist destinations along the route in China andCentral Asia,' Dwivedi said. Dwivedi began her journey in early 2000. 'I made at least four journeys. I travelled across thousands of milesfrom Turfan, Kuga, from Kashgar to Khotan, from Xian to Dunhuang -through the dreadful deserts of Gobi and Taklamakan, over the snowymountains of Pamir, to the innumerable oases dotting the foot of theTienshan and Kunlun ranges and the beautiful river valleys. I havevisited all the grottos and Buddhist monasteries on the route to studytheir art and heritage,' she said. Dwivedi's first travelogue - 'The Buddhist Heritage Sites of India' -covered the entire Dhammayatra of the Buddhist circuit in India andNepal. The silk route, Dwivedi said, 'was the conduit between the east and the west'. 'It was the oldest and greatest international route that sowed theseeds of the present globalisation,' said the writer, who belongs toKushinagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Highlighting the importance of India along the route and in itshistory, Dwivedi said, 'It is recorded that many Indian scholars wereinvited by the ruling houses of Tibet. Of these, the guruPadmasambhava, Sant Rakshita and Dipamkara Atisa were famous. KingSron-tsan-Gampo (600 AD-627 AD) sent his minister Sambhota with 16companions to Varanasi in eastern India. They were instructed to devisea written language for Tibet by adopting Sanskrit alphabets,' she said. Even now, arrival of Indian travellers generates goodwill in areas around Khotan, the writer said. 'Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta are very popular in the region,' she said. The southern silk route ran from Xian through the province of Szechuaninto Tibet and then through several river tracks and mountain passesalong the 4,000-km border stretching from east to west into India,Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Mynamar, Dwivedi said.
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