Zhongdian, Shangrila

Trip Start Jul 26, 2007

Trip End Sep 27, 2007

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Flag of China Zhongdian, China
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Arival in Zhongdian

It was raining when we left Lijiang and it was raining when we arrived in Zhongdian.

Prayer flags all over the place

It was miserably cold we left the bus station in Zhongdian and looked for a taxi to the old town, we knew its not far away but with our luggage and the weather as it was so we caught hold of a taxi. The driver didn't know where our hostel was so quite some time was spent looking around and still we didn't find it, so we left him in the old town and started out on foot.

Main Square

Eventually we found the hostel and it was a dump and our room reflected the conditions there. We'd arrived in the evening so the following morning we booked into the next door cheep hotel which was a whole lot better and surprisingly cheaper, which goes to show that it is worth while shopping around even for a good room.

Main Square - 2

Like Dali and Lijiang before, Zhongdian is a rebuilt old town and is very picturesque, it is very much a Tibetan town the houses sturdily built with enormous logs of wood and very colourful, all this like the other towns in the region, to attract as many visitors and tourists as possible in the short tourist season there.

Main Square - 3

The town is blockaded off from motor vehicles at all of its entrances the only vehicles we saw was the trash truck doing his daily rounds and the occasional motorbike,

The local trash van

also the main square is raised up above all of the streets leading into it bye several steps, there bye preventing the movement of motor vehicles. The streets would not be easy to drive on anyway because they were surfaced with flag stones, almost like cobble stones only more uneven.

Twisting streets

It was so cold and almost continuously rainy that we had to buy ourselves extra warm clothing and shoes. Whereas in the previous towns I could make do with sandals and socks even in the rain, here it was just too cold, but finding size 45 shoes for me was an experience because as I was told the maximum size available was 43, ironically eventually I found a pair size 47 and I made do with that.

Main Square - 4

Whilst in town we searched for a travel agency or some one who could advise us about what there is to see and visit in the area, all of the agencies we visited advertised in English but nobody spoke even half a word of English. Eventually we got talking to a Tibetan guy who lives in California and was on a visit and through him we learnt a whole lot more than we could have learnt from reading and the Lonely Planet book and all of the travel agencies put together.

Going to the monastery

Outside of town there is a large monastery which he (the Californian) advised us to visit and like he said it is very big and impressive monastery with some 600 monks.

The monastery

Manastery and surrounding village

In spite of the intermittent rain we climbed all the steps up to the top of the hill to the monastery buildings and we could see that just like at the bottom of the hill there was a lot of rebuilding going on.

The arm of the Buddha

Repairing the Buddha

Buddhas' hand

In one of the buildings there was a very large statue of the Buddha and it was without a head and limbs and as you can see in the pictures here the limbs were strewn about waiting to be assembled.
After Zhongdian we travelled back to Lijiang.