Shangri-La (formerly known as Zhongdian)

Following our gorgeous hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge, we arranged a trip from the Gorge through Baishutai to Shangri-La. These mountains are quite dramatic. There are many peaks that raise about 14,000 and 15,000 feet. It reminded me quite a bit of the Rockies in Colorado. Lots of lush green valleys along the way. In Baishutai there is a tourist destination that lots of folks visit for the limestone terraces. I personally was not all that impressed by them. It was one of the rare times I thought my photos were more dramatic than actually seeing them in person. Some of my being underwhelmed had more to do with how they had maintained the site and how touristy it was. I was taken with the scenery all around us though. Huge peaks, green valleys and aside from the limestone terraces it was not overrun with tourists.
We had this fabulous meal at a local restaurant where our chinese speaking friends just went into the kitchen and looked at the produce and asked them to cook what looked good. I think our meal for the two of us came to about 32 RMB which is about 5 US dollars....and we had a lot of food.
After our great meal we drove the rest of the way to Zhongdian or what is now Shangrila. That's a story within itself! A few years back the city legally changed its name from Zhongdian to Shangri-La - named after the fictional city in James Hilton's book that was quite popular. Apparently the fictional city had some striking similarities to Zhongdian. They changed the name to promote tourism which apparently worked really well. It worked on us at least!
Shangri-la has that wonderful high mountain air. The city is at over 10,000 feet. Again reminded me of the Colorado mountains that I came to know so well during my time in college and beyond in Boulder. It's a gorgeous valley surrounded by spectacular mountain peaks. Once you get into the charming old town you can see this ginormous gold prayer wheel spinning around alongside a Tibetan Temple on a hill.
Old Town Shangrila is a smaller version of what we experienced in Lijiang- a pedestrian only cobblestone maze of shops, restaurants, and people.
Some highlights of our visit included a hike to a famous local Nixi Potter in a nearby village, exploring the huge Songzhalin (i might have spelled that wrong) Temple, and a hike to the top of a hill in town which gave us a great view of the valley.
One very entertaining sight was watching locals dance each night in the main square. I thought at first this was something just done for the benefit of tourists but apparently a not uncommon sight in many parks throughout China. A shopowner would turn his/her speaker out into the square and blast some local pop music and everyone would jump in and do what looked like our version of line dancing in a bar but this was in a circle in the main plaza. It was quite a fun sight of old, young, and of folks from a variety of different family backgrounds- Tibetan, Bai, and other ethnic minority backgrounds. The only way I knew this was from the traditional dress that many of the women were wearing. Chinese travelers also would join in for the dancing. We were told by Katie and Annelise that dancing in public parks in the evening is quite common. Seems like a nice tradition.
We had only 2 days in Shangri-la and really would have liked more. Seems like there is lots of great hiking to be done in this region.
From Shangri-la we flew back into Kunming for one last overnight with Annelise & Katie. We made the most of it by going to a goodbye party for some of the English teachers and then for an hour of KTV which is essentially Karaoke. Here you rent a private room. We went to a posh KTV where we had this very nice private room with a very high tech DVD Karaoke machine. We had a blast singing along to Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, the Beatles, and our very favorite- Total Eclipse of the Heart. After a late night we got a little sleep and got ready to fly on to Yangshuo. See Carol's posting for that update.