China - Part 2: Shangri-La

Our quest continued as we headed north in the Yunnan province to Shangri-La.

What and where exactly is Shangri-La? Well, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia that explains it pretty well...

Today, various places claim the title, such as parts of southern Kham in southwestern Yunnan province, including the tourist destinations of Lijiang and Zhongdian. Places like Sichuan and Tibet also claim the real Shangri-La was in its territory. In 2001, Tibet Autonomous Region put forward a proposal that the three regions optimise all Shangri-la tourism resources and promote them as one. After failed attempts to establish a China Shangri-la Ecological Tourism Zone in 2002 and 2003, government representatives of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and Tibet Autonomous Region signed a declaration of cooperation in 2004. Also in 2001, Zhongdian County in northwestern Yunnan officially renamed itself Shangri-La County.

On our trek up to Shangri-La, we stopped at the Tiger Leaping Gorge where we soaked in the natural beauty of a contender for the world's deepest river canyon. Part of the Yangtze River, it is located 60km of LiJiang. This area is a primarily Tibetan county and formerly called Zongdian.

Once we met up with our tour guide, who's name was Tiger (how appropriate), he took us for a typical "tourist meal". We were pleasantly surprised when Tiger took us to this little restaurant located along the Yangtze river for lunch. We had a delicious sampling of locally grown mushrooms and vegetables, along with the infamous rice noodle soup.

Mixture of various varieties of mushrooms

Pumpkin Stew

Rice Noodle Soup

Once we arrived in Shangri-La, we were greeted by extremely cold temperatures and high altitudes. At the highest peak, we were 4150 meters above sea level. The cans of oxygen they were selling became my best friend. Some of us in the group (namely J & I) had trouble walking and climbing stairs. When we were touring the National Park, we hit turtle speed. Luckily our eating abilities were not affected. Our meals at our hotel featured mainly local comfort foods. Such as stew pork belly, soupy rice noodles, steamed ommellette and spicy beef.

Soy sauce stewed pork belly

Spicy crispy beef

Stewed Egg Ommelette

One of the highlights of our Shangri-La experience came at the cultural show where we were served local snacks and drinks. This included yak butter milk tea, yak cheese, soy nuts, and some uber potent rice wine. Although some of us tried some of these snacks, it did not really suit our palates.

After an enjoyable day and a chilly night in Shangri-La (or as they call it: the roof of the world), we headed back to lower altitudes and prepared for our next destination: GuangZhou.

Tah-shi de-leh!