Shangri-La, cold weather shopping!
Mama Naxi saw us off on 13th November with a good-luck miniature parcel of tea each following my two (Y2) banana pancakes I ordered - one for breakfast and one for the road. After small mountainside passes, three hours on a minibus saw us to what was starting to appear like Wild West territory. Huge log cabins and barns were clustered in small settlements behind hills on the prairies, whilst huge woolly cattle roamed the plains and along our road which cut a straight line over the dust to Shangri-La.
Shangri-La itself was a cold place, not helped by Harmony Guesthouse's "Genuine Tibetan" ie shed-style accommodation, with outside shower and toilet! We had a quick scout-around, seeing the outside of the controversial chorten with its large column of revolving concrete. Easy to see why the locals aren't happy with tacky tourist gimmicks like this, if only they applied the same level of taste when deciding what to sell in their shops!
We went for dinner in a Tibetan-style lodge which reminded me more of a ski-lodge than anything else - probably because I was wearing every available layer including my ski jacket and I was still sitting as close as possible to the toastie-warm clay pot fires. A couple of huge plates of roast beef and rice and a pot of incredibly-strong but very good fried yak's cheese later and we were finally warmed-through.
Between admiring and playing with all the swords on show we went looking for even more cold-weather gear. I couldn't resist salopetes for less than GBP10, especially as my legs were by now the coldest part of me, having wrapped-up in a T-Shirt, a hoodie and two coats for our wander and still not feeling particularly warm. All in my size seemed to have been swiped though so the hunt was on! Minutes after Martin left for home I found them in a shop, owned by a guy called Xin. His English was excellent and he started showing me which items were real, which were fakes with good function (ie when the factories use up the material at the end of a contract for real ones) and which were fakes with practically no function. After a torrent of questions I now reckon I'm a good authority on detecting the authenticity of outdoor-wear! When I started asking about what was worth seeing around here and how best to do the backdoor route to Chengdu I found out he was a tour guide as well as a shop owner so we started discussing how much it would cost to visit Meili Snow Mountain, its glacier and various other sites along the way. A quick trip back to our room found Martin asleep and generally in agreement (probably due to sleepiness) with everything I said, so next morning we were off on a guided tour for two days!
That night I awoke several times feeling sick, with my stomach feeling terrible (probably repercussions from the previous night) and being very out-of-breath (probably as we'd risen another 1000m). I'd guess the freezing-cold air in our shed-style accommodation wasn't helping either - we were both wearing hats and mine seemed to be giving me a headache to add to how great I was already feeling! It amounted to the worst night's sleep of the holiday!
Shangri-La itself was a cold place, not helped by Harmony Guesthouse's "Genuine Tibetan" ie shed-style accommodation, with outside shower and toilet! We had a quick scout-around, seeing the outside of the controversial chorten with its large column of revolving concrete. Easy to see why the locals aren't happy with tacky tourist gimmicks like this, if only they applied the same level of taste when deciding what to sell in their shops!
We went for dinner in a Tibetan-style lodge which reminded me more of a ski-lodge than anything else - probably because I was wearing every available layer including my ski jacket and I was still sitting as close as possible to the toastie-warm clay pot fires. A couple of huge plates of roast beef and rice and a pot of incredibly-strong but very good fried yak's cheese later and we were finally warmed-through.
Between admiring and playing with all the swords on show we went looking for even more cold-weather gear. I couldn't resist salopetes for less than GBP10, especially as my legs were by now the coldest part of me, having wrapped-up in a T-Shirt, a hoodie and two coats for our wander and still not feeling particularly warm. All in my size seemed to have been swiped though so the hunt was on! Minutes after Martin left for home I found them in a shop, owned by a guy called Xin. His English was excellent and he started showing me which items were real, which were fakes with good function (ie when the factories use up the material at the end of a contract for real ones) and which were fakes with practically no function. After a torrent of questions I now reckon I'm a good authority on detecting the authenticity of outdoor-wear! When I started asking about what was worth seeing around here and how best to do the backdoor route to Chengdu I found out he was a tour guide as well as a shop owner so we started discussing how much it would cost to visit Meili Snow Mountain, its glacier and various other sites along the way. A quick trip back to our room found Martin asleep and generally in agreement (probably due to sleepiness) with everything I said, so next morning we were off on a guided tour for two days!
That night I awoke several times feeling sick, with my stomach feeling terrible (probably repercussions from the previous night) and being very out-of-breath (probably as we'd risen another 1000m). I'd guess the freezing-cold air in our shed-style accommodation wasn't helping either - we were both wearing hats and mine seemed to be giving me a headache to add to how great I was already feeling! It amounted to the worst night's sleep of the holiday!
posted by Ian Matthias at
11/22/2006 03:23:00 pm
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