Rough Edge

Zhong Dian until 2003, now Shangri La. If you had visited here in 1997 you would have missed the Old City. Because it wasn’t there. This town at 3200m is the result of massive investment to attract tourists to the area and it works. There is traditional dancing in the square every evening from 7pm – you can join in if you like, it goes on for two hours or more. To be fair the Old Town has been lovingly (re)created and it is extremely picturesque. There’s a great Yak Cheese shop, the young yak cheese is rubbish but the old yak cheese is great. And there is an interesting take on the Long March in one of the museums at the foot of town. It’ll also come as no surprise by now that you can head up the nearby snow mountain on – yes – a cable car. Among other things I was also advised to see the monastery at dusk, but unfortunately today it was raining so that will have to wait for next time. It would be very easy here to get sucked into the backpacker (lonely planet) trail and again meet everyone you just met at TLG, so best advice is find something obscure or ask people who have already been, before you come yourself. But after five days trekking around and generally doing fit stuff, this will be a good halfway house before heading onwards and upwards to the final Chinese frontier with Tibet; Deqin the most N Westerly town in Yunnan and my final destination on this trip. Right now – I think I’ll just be a tourist for a day or two – now where’s that reproduction yak’s head keyring shop again? (Zhong Dian 17 July)

Rough Edge Adventure Logistics

China 09