Shangri-La, Yunnan Province, China

Shangri-La originally derives from Tibetan for ‘sun and moon in heart’.

The name was made popular due to author James Hilton, who released a fictional book called Lost Horizon in the mid 20th century. The book described a town that was so beautiful that it could not possible exist on Earth, using reports he had read on the area as inspiration. Hilton never actually visited Shangri-La. At the time, this wonderful little town was called Zhongdian - or "Jiantang" in Tibetan, and only changed it’s name in 2001 in the hope to gain more tourism.

Due to it’s placement at an altitude of around 10,000 feet (3000m), you can definitely feel out of breath here, but this also means it has a rather unique way of life, with an interesting mixture of Chinese and Tibetan culture, food and clothing. The food consists predominantly of Yak and the style of clothing is intended to keep the wearer incredibly warm due to hard winters – even when we were there in October the temperature was noticeable a lower the second the sun dropped behind the horizon.

In the city itself there is plenty to see and do to keep you occupied for a few days. There are a series of temples in the old town district that have more prayer flags than you could ever imagine, and an incredibly friendly monk who gives out incense to every visitor and insists you light it and walk around the temple to pray to the gods. There is also a huge prayer spinner that takes the strength of at least 10 people to get it moving, bringing people together under the hand of god.

My top tip for Shangri-La is to make the surprisingly long walk up to the top of 100 Chicken Temple. There are chickens up there somewhere but you first have to find your way through old town and up a pretty big hill, which at a normal altitude wouldn’t cause too much harm but up here it takes a few stops to get your breath back. On the way up you’ll find a ‘tent’ made from prayer flags and from here you view of the city and surrounding mountains is spectacular. At the top of the hill you’ll find the modest 100 Chicken Temple, with a couple of monks and a fair few chickens, we came across only a couple of other tourists, making it a much more serene experience than the cluster of temples in the town itself.

Finally, I can’t write about Shangri-La without writing about Old Town. There is proof of human life in this area from over 6000-7000 years ago, so Shangri-La is far from a new settlement, with the Old Town district as proof of distinctive traditional culture. This district is full of interesting little streets and architecture. There was, however, a fire in 2014 that burnt down a large section of the area, with re-construction works still going on in 2016. This area is rather touristy, with every shop selling some kind of ‘Traditional Tibetan… something’, and it took a lot of inner-strength to walk away without a new Yak Wool Scarf as they are so warm and so beautiful!

Shangri-La is a long way away from anything else, so if you have your own means of transport you’ll be fine, but if not you can hitch hike like we did (read here about our experiences hitch hiking in China) or you can get a bus from/to Lijiang or Dali, usually organised by your hostel.

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From Shangri-La we headed back towards Kunming via Lijiang and Dali