Streets of Dukezong Old Town 獨克宗古城 in Shangrila 香格里拉
Shangrila is such as magical word that the mention of its name evokes images which can only be seen in the movies. Little did I know that I would get the chance to visit Shangrila, or at least its namesake. Shangrila is a town in the northern part of Yunnan province in China. I took the bus from Yunnan in what would be a 10-11 hour bus ride. Sleep was not a problem theoretically since it was a sleeper bus. However, in reality, it was a bad as I imagined it to be. The bed was tiny and there wasn’t much room to roll about. I would always have this fear of rolling off the bed and in the level below. Not good if you are on a moving bus. My bus mates weren’t that pleasant either. Okay, only one of them wasn’t very pleasant. It seems that she talked her mobile for more than an hour. I couldn’t believe it, the radiation from her mobile must be bad for her.
Old Style Buildings at the Duzekong Old Town 獨克宗古城 in Shangrila 香格里拉
I only got a few winks of sleep on the bus. I was already expecting this since I can hardly sleep on moving vehicles, much less on overnight ones. However, this was a trip I needed to make since I figured this would be the most efficient way to exploring this route. I first go to the furthest point of my trip and work my way back to Kunming to catch my flight out. My biggest concern here would be the altitude. This part of Yunnan would be quite high with Shangrila itself already at 3200, the highest I have ever been apart from an airplane. At these altitudes, mountain sickness is a real problem. Without a companion, I don’t know what I will do if I get afflicted with mountain sickness. So decided to play it safe and take it slow on the first day. As we pulled over the bus station at Shangrila, I prepared myself for a whole new adventure ahead of me.
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