Shangri-la?

A few years ago the Chinese government renamed the city of Zhongdian on the Tibetan border Shangrila in order to increase tourism. It didn't really work as most westerners are disgusted at such an obvious ploy but I went anyway. I found a town where everyone looks like they must be at least over 100 years old and beautiful Tibetan architecture and culture without having to spend hundreds on a permit to Lhasa.

Coming into town we drove on the edge of a cliff through many snow covered peaks and passed several mounds like the one seen here. It's used for prayer but I couldn't get any information beyond that. (This is where speaking the language of the country you're in comes in handy)



The first thing I did (and also the only but we'll get to that later) was visit the Songzalin Monastery. Note how the houses still come right up to the walls of the monastery. It was also fairly dirty inside and there were still places women weren't allowed to enter. All signs that Shangri-la hasn't become the tourist theme park it was supposed to be. (lucky for me)
I really like Tibetan architecture. (that what this style is) Like the Naxi and Bai houses they painted the outside. Especially the windows are accented with pretty borders and pictures. Also, look at the sky! It's so blue and no haze. At 4000meters I think the air is too thin to really hold anything. Here I got a nice tan from the increased intensity of the sun's rays but I also had a slight headache, my only symptom of altitude sickness besides a general weakness.
I wasn't supposed to take this photo but I did. This is the inside of the main temple. Can you spot the monk praying? Fun story about Tibetan prayers. Tibet has its own language (a kind of flowing script) and when they pray they chant in their language while thumbing prayer beads (think rosary) and rocking or swaying. The first time I saw someone praying I had walked into a shop and the man behind the counter was praying. I thought he was mentally disturbed and that I should leave before I put it together. Tibetan sounds nothing like Mandarin.
Just a beauty shot.
And another monk.
Did I mention that Shangri-la really is a paradise.
A bit of the old city where I stayed. New parts were built to accomadate tourists but most of those buildings are empty.
Oh, and because they still subsist on farming there are animals roaming the streets and countryside. The most famous is the yak. Used for meat and milk.
There are also pigs (they remind me of javelinas) These pigs are skittish of people but roam the city streets. I guess they belong to somebody?
And the Mastiff originates from this area. This one is a stray who came and sat next to me when I was eating. I named him Harrison. (For some reason he looks like Harrison Ford to me, does anyone else see it?)
Again not sure what this is. I accidentally walked into a festival/dance thing. But here is some of Tibets traditional/festive dress. I like the fur hat. I realized that I never explained why I came to the South of China though. So, something like 90% of China is the Han etnicity but the other 10% is made up of about 80 different minority groups all living in southern China. Each with their own languages, dress and culture. The Bai and Naxi are actually matrilineal groups with some interesting marrige practices, so I'm told. The problem is the Chinese government keeps turning the settlements into tourist areas and relocating Han into the area to keep the authority. So I haven't taken many pictures of the minorities in the area because often times they're fake. But these women (and men) look and speak Tibetan so I feel that they're real. I haven't posted a video in a while. But here is one of the dancing and singing/chanting.



Ok, so I mentioned that traveling during the new year's holiday is hard but I never really had a problem until leaving Shangri-la. I left earlier than I wanted because the bus I wanted only left on somedays so I jumped on one at 5:00pm on Friday evening. It was a sleeper bus (seen below). About 10 beds deep and two beds high, none of them big enough to accomodate a real person comfortably. Being white I got the biggest at the front but my feet hung off the end another 3 inches still. And they're hard. And of course it's a bus on Chinese roads so it bounced and swayed for 10 hours. Needless to say I didn't sleep much.

Now my plan was to go to an industrial city called Panzhihua and take the train that connected to my next destination Chengdu. For some reason the bus stopped at an outlying town instead of the actual city, so at 5:00am I was forced to take a taxi to the train station. About 80 quai (don't convert it, just know that that's alot for a taxi ride in China) I get to the train station and find out the train I want doesn't leave until 3:30pm and the hotel where I had planned to sleep was closed. So I camped out at the train station for 9 hours. I ended up paying a shop 10quai to let me use their power outlet and watched every movie I have saved on my harddrive. But misfortune continues because when I got on the train I found that I had a hard seat (meaning sitting up) next to a mother and child with no sense of personal space. The train filled up with people litterally filling the aisles and people spitting and babies pooping on the floor (diapers don't exist in China) And I come to find out that it's a 15 hour train ride to my destination. But luckily, about 6 hours in, a conductor comes by and rescues me by asking me to upgrade to a sleeper bed (which were available) for the sake of space. This is the way the Chinese usually travel but I for one could never do it. I arrived in Chengdu at 6:00am and slept until 2:00pm.