Cobbled Streets of Dukezong Ancient Town 独克宗古城
To be honest, I didn’t really plan much when I made my decision to come to Yunnan province. I have gotten used to traveling in China that I decided to play it by ear. I was aware though that the elevation some parts of the province can be very high to the point that one needs to make sure to ascend slowly. There is always an option to fly all the way up to this area but that might be risking altitude sickness especially when coming from sea level. I decided to take an overnight bus ride from Kunming to Shangrila or Zhongdian as it is also known. Taking the bus might be more prudent to go slowly to a slightly lower elevation than to fall ill because I was in a hurry to get to Shangrila. Who knows, maybe I would unintentionally get to the place this place was named after because of that.
Dukezong Ancient Town 独克宗古城 is Quite Hilly
I had an option to go to Deqin from Kunming and that would have cost me around two more hours of travel but at the altitude of 3500 meters it might be not wise to proceed. I may consider my options when I acclimatize in Shangrila. Shangrila is one of those tourism success stories since this place was named after the famed location found in James Hilton’s Lost Horizon where it describes a mystical village in the Himalayas where people live in harmony. It seems that people have come to believe that Shangrila really is in this place, though no small part of the government promotion of this place as “the” Shangrila. They even went to the extent of changing the name of the place from Zhongdian to Shangrila, thereby making it “official”. My first stop would be where I will be staying, Dukezong Ancient Town.
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