The bus to Shangri-La has an exotic sound to it full of eastern promise….it conjures up images of tranquilty and calm, mountains and lakes, being feed grapes whilst being fanned from the heat, cold beer served freely whilst dangling hot feet in cold pools of water – aaahhh what a dreamy 5 hour cramped bus ride it was! Arrived in Shangri-La to only one of the above and it wasn’t grapes and cold beer, it wasn’t even a mountain backdrop as this was obscured by cloud! It was feet dangling in pools of cold water, well I say pools they were puddles as it was raining heavily! Found our way to the hostel to be told that we didn’t have a room but it was ok as we could book into the one opposite – got there and it had no heating or hot water – ok it was more Shangri-Brrr than La! We had travelled down from Chengdu but climbed to around 3,500 metres above sea level so although it was further south it was colder. I was getting some strange looks for wandering around straight off the bus in shorts and t-shirt while those around me had coats and woolly hats! Shangri-La is in the Tibetan part of China without actually being in Tibet (as near as we can get!!) and is an area which is home to the Naxi people (I had to re-read it as well!). For a moment spending cold nights in talking about ethnic cleansing and the third richt didn’t sound that much fun, especially when you see the Naxi symbol is actually just like a swasticker!! But thankfully no, it’s all a bit more chilled out here and cold nights are spend in cold cafes and bars just trying to keep warm! The old part of town is a maze of little alley’s full of traditional buildings, markets stalls and traditionally dressed locals (proper ones, not the kind that as soon as the tourists turn their back they have changed back into their jeans and fleeces!!). Everywhere you looked local goods plus the standard array of tourist tat was for sale, from beads and bracelets to yak horns and tails. Unfortunately our time here was generally hampered by the rain, so in 2 days we had about 2 hours or so when it wasn’t heavily raining to explore (Well we did try in the rain as well to be fair). we explored the town and visited a small temple with the hugest prayer wheel. The rest of the time we generally just hide the from the cold and rain in little cafes, like all good travellers do! We’d planned to spend an extra day but because of the weather and the fact it was meant to clear up in a day or 2 we headed to Lijiang as we wanted to do some trekking…plus the lure of roast potato’s on a stick with chilli powder we’d seen being sold in Lijiang on the way through was just too tempting!
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Chris Wright
I love the photo of the Yak – Hamburger sign.