Finding the Shangri-La in our hearts

Because the entire county in north western Yunnan Province has been given the name of Shangri-La, there is often a bit of debate as to which town should be officially described as Shangri-la. So when I asked a woman who worked at a local handricrafts store if I was in the actual Shangri-la, she said I needed to find the Shangri-La in my heart. Well I think I found it the other day. We started our day off by going out to the hot springs near town. It was about 30 minutes away and we descend into this small ravine where at the base was the hot springs. Given our initial disappointment with hot springs in Xi'an we weren't quite sure what to expect. When we saw the large pool of water with steam coming off of it, we knew that we had indeed found the kind of hot springs we had been hoping for. There was a bit of confusion with the entrance fee since the accent in this part of the country is different. We had thought the entrance was 130Y. I seriously contemplated leaving rather than pay this exorbitant price. But Andrea suggested since we were already there and paid the cab to take us there, we should just suck it up and pay. So we handed out 200Y each looking for change and the guy kept saying no. I was getting more annoyed. Not only would I have to pay a crazy high amount but I wouldn't even get change! Well it turned out the price was only 30Y each...d'oh! So we gave him a 100Y note and all was settled. We got in, changed into our bathing suits and took a dip in the nice hot water of the spring. Then we touched the slimy floor...eww. So we tried our best to swim and walk on our toes instead. It still felt nice to be fully submerged in hot water for the first time in months (though I did have a nice hot bath in Qingdao).

The set up of the hot springs was nice, but nothing spectacular. But I would recommend it for anyone who is staying in Zhongdian for a more than a few days.


When we got back to town we hunkered down at the bar across from where we were staying to update our blogs and enjoy some hot chocolate. We were prepared for a completely lazy day of doing nothing then heading off to dinner at this Indian restaurant we found the night before called the Puppet Café. How do you not go to a restaurant called the Puppet? Well in the midst of our lounging, Andrea started chatting it up with this girl from Australia, Eleanor. Halfway through the conversation she invited us out to join a tour group that was going to visit a Tibetan family outside of town, to do some yak herding, have a traditional Tibetan meal and then go visit the school she was teaching at where high school aged children that are too poor to go to high school can learn hospitality skills (ETTI). Their education is subsidized by the Australian government and private donors. It sounded like a great deal so we shelved our plans for the Puppet Café for another day. We met the organized tour group that was also going and were off. The road was bumpy but not too bad. It took about 20 minutes to get out to the town, then we walked through muddy streets to get to the home. The views were spectacular. It was a clear and crisp evening with the mountains surrounding us and yaks all around us. When we made it to the small wooden shack that houses that yaks during the cool autumn nights we were greeted by a very kind and generous Tibetan family. They instructed us on how to call the yaks in. I took a short video, so you can click here to check it out. (insert video link here).

Meeting with the students was another highlight. They were using this opportunity to practice their English and we got to learn more about the school and where these students come from.They even tried to teach us the dance they did in the square, but we weren't the best students.

When we got back to Shangri-la, we had been invited by Eleanor to a 30th birthday party of a friend of hers. I took this to be a great opportunity to unload the bottle of cachaca I had been carrying around with me. Well I had no idea that Andrea and I would be dancing it up all night and drinking up Caipirinhas ...but wow, it was such a a great end to a magical day!

Paradise sleeps in

We woke up early today to meet up with the Brits and Australians we met up with at the gorge so that we could share a taxi to a nearby wetlands. We made plans to meet up at 8:30am so we thought we'd get up early to grab some street food. Unfortunately not much goes on in town before 9am. Not only were there very few food vendors out and about, but there weren't even any taxis for us to take out to the wetlands that early. So we went to the Compass Café, this very nice western style café. After finally heading out to grab a cab we did a bit of negotiating to get out to this place. It was supposed to be only 7km away so after much haranguing on the price, mostly thanks to our newly made Australian friends Tamima and Mez who speak near perfect Mandarin, we talked the taxi into taking us for 60Y out and back and wait for us there. That's just under 10$ US for the 6 of us. Not a bad deal. When we finally made it out to the place, we were a bit disappointed to see that it was not a very exciting wetlands with trash strewn around. Then they wanted to charge us 30Y to get in which we still would have to pay for the horseback riding that was our original motivation for going. After a bit of haggling again we ended up getting in for 120Y between the 6 of us and had quite a ball just in haggling. At one point we tired to get the to throw in a free mini yak, they they didn't budge.





When we finally got in, it was slightly less impressive and turned out the only way to get around inside was to rent a horse. Here we worked out haggling magic to negotiate an additional 10 minutes on the horses for the same price. And we were off. Our local guides were chatting it up with each other and having a great time, as were we. We saw some free range pigs, some rummaging cows and a big expanse of wetlands. I was a bit concerned that Andrea's horse was going to bite my leg since every now and then it kept snapping at my horse, which were both being pulled by our guide, a very sweet older woman dressed in traditional garb. She was so sweet, she even snapped up my camera and took a bunch of photos of me, Andrea, me and Andrea, me, Andrea and everyone else...well you get the idea. Since Andres still had her camera, she was able to snap up a few photos of them photographing us.



When we finally used up our 30 minutes, we decided to take up try our hand at some archery. I loaded up a few videos of all our attempts. Andrea showed off her Oklahoma roots by firing the arrow right into the target on the first pull and then repeating the feat only moments later. I did manage to hit the target on one of my three attempts...so not too shabby. All in all, our second day in paradise has been fun. And now we are going to do some hostel shopping this evening hoping to find a more charming place than the one we are staying in now. But the good thing is we managed to get our laundry done...one thing about packing lightly is to constantly keep up on the laundry...or bear the wrath of an odoriferous journey.

Shangrila

Yes, this is indeed paradise*! I can attest to that fact since when I got off the bus in Shangrila (Zhongdian). After hopping out of the cab that whisked us away from the bus station into the old town we immediately fell in love with this quaint little town. It has a very weird vibe to it. Somewhere between the Bolivian Altiplano, a Colorado mountain resort and some hippy tourist town with Tibetan influences. I just love it. We were greeted with dancing in the main square as today happened to be the mid autumn festival (though I later found out they do this every night).


Then while walking around looking for a place to stay we happened on a staring contest between two young boys, they couldn't have been any older than 6 and 7. When we finally got to a place to stay we set out and quickly picked up the potato on stick, which is basically 4 baked potatoes covered in chili sauce then grilled...mmm so good. Then we went to eat at the Kamapa Cowboy restaurant which was something like a log cabin with a mixture of Native American and Southwest US decor and Tibetan influences. Our meal was the most divine pork ribs and cucumber salad ... And to those of you who know my fascination with popcorn I almost cried when I saw the waiter bring out a fresh bowl of sweetened popcorn to the table of people eating and drinking on the patio. The town has truly lived up to its name...at least for me ;-)
Oh and we happened to run into the hikers we met on the Leaping Tiger gorge. Its so fun to run into the same people again. We are off to explore the Napa Hai Lake tomorrow.






*For those of you unfamiliar with the work of James Hilton, in his novel "Lost Horizon," Hilton describes an idyllic Tibetan mountain monastery that has discovered the fountain of youth. The town's name was Shangri-la. In 1996, the Chinese government created a task force to find the really Shangri-la based on on clues from the novel. Zhongdian fit the bill due the presence of a Tibetan monastery in the general area described by the book, and the supposed discovery of a plane crash that occurred in the 1930's.