Yunnan

In the very southwest of China you find the province Yunnan. The state borders the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Tibet. Recently we took a 7 day vacation here with a Beijing group called China Culture Club.

We flew into the capital town of Kunming (2000m above sea level) where we slowly worked our way closer to the Tibetan border . What a welcome landscape after hot days in Beijing: Clean air, clean water, blue skies despite a forecast of rain every day and majestic mountains shimmering in the background. We even saw stars at night.

In Kunming we visited the Stone Forest, hiking stone paths surrounded by stone formations looking oddly like trees. We were also served a mushroom hot-pot lunch which did not at all change my view that western soups would win a contest any day of the week.

From Kunming we flew to Dali. We took a local boat to a beautiful lakeside temple followed by a chairlift to the top of Mount Tsangshan. In the evening we strolled around the village, noticing many local minorities people walking around dressed in their customary outfits. Yunnan is the home of around 25 of the more than 50 different minority people in China. Around Dali you mainly see Bai people.( By co-incidence , Philip and I have a Chinese last name of Bai, so we felt right at home)

Our trip continued by bus towards Shaxi. This was a very small and unusually interesting village where you felt as if you suddenly stepped back in time. Shaxi was once an important trade station on the Southern Silk Road, shown by it's wide streets and fancy buildings. Through a partnership with a company in Italy who feared Shaxi's history would be lost, it has recently been restored the proper way (Not like a lot of China sites which are hastily torn down and built back up somewhat replicated, always with an eye on catching tourist business) Shaxi mainly sold handmade shoes at reasonable prices, and the shoes were made right in front of you. It has now become popular with Chinese film-makers as it really looks genuine. Here we stayed at a charming old court-yard hotel.

Then on to Lijang, capital of the former Naxi Kingdom. On the way we stopped at Tiger Leaping Gorge, which right now has a lot of water due to all the rain in southern China. Having imagined something like Niagara, it was a little bit of a let down, yet still interesting.

In Lijiang we were treated to a tour in a rowboat on a small, local lake. The serenade by a local language toothless rower with a real zest for life was priceless!!

Lijiang has a lot of history, but the old town (Which was actually torn down and a new "old "town replaced it) looked somewhat too touristy in daylight. However, at night the Chinese architecture, the streams running through it, the minority people, the brightly lit lanterns made it a worthwhile place to spend the night.( Just pass quickly by the 100++ stores who all sell the same yak-meat, the same shawls, show the same hammering of silver that actually never produce the jewelery they sell) And the fact that the city pays the housewives to dress in local dresses and dance in the squares does not take away the fact that this is a real Naxi style behavior.

The next day we finally reached Shangri-La (previously called Zhongdian) whose claim to be the fictional Shangri-La from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon", the last town before the high plateau of the Himalayas. As far as we could determine, the town did not quite live up to that claim. However, we did enjoy the feeling of basically visiting Tibet as 1/2 the population are Tibetans, as indeed out guide was. He was a very interesting person, having fled to India with his family during the Cultural revolution. He grew up in India, and in his early twenties moved back to Tibet. He was unhappy and payed a large amount to be guided through Nepal back to India. It was a tremendously difficult ordeal, they were caught by Nepalese authorities and taken back to China. He now claims to be very happy in Zhongdian, and says that the living conditions there are far better than in Tibet.The place we slept and the restaurants we ate at were all owned by Tibetans, and most of the local houses were Tibetan style, apparently the authorities help by donating money to people to build these grand homes , all decorated in colorful Tibetan style. The area had many Tibetan (Yellow hat Buddhist) monasteries. Contrary to temples in many other parts of China, these were very active with old and young monks, worshipers and life. And the picture of the Dali Lama was prominently placed inside the temples.

During the daytime we explored the Pudacuo National Park. Due to the many other tourists with the same desire, this could only be done on organized buses. However, the National Park was beautiful with mountains, clear rivers, roaming yak, alpine flora and a beautiful lake which we walked around on a boardwalk for about 4 km. The whole setting reminded us of Mount Desert Island walks around Jordan Pond. To quote an old Norwegian saying:" Foreign places are good,, but home is still better!!" We quickly declared that this place in the Himalayas was not "our Shangri-La", we prefer to save that distinction for our future home on MDI

Post script: Upon return to Beijing the next day, I reread "Lost Horizon" Realizing that Shangri-La may be magical to the few elite who try to escape the fate of everybody else, I no longer want to use it as a metaphor for any place in Maine. You are all welcome there, but nobody will keep you against your will.