Or “Ah-lala-lei” which is the way the Naxi minority people say “Hello!” in Yunnan. This information was courtesy of our local guide, a talkative little pepper pot named “Naxi Diana”. Our May holiday was a 6-day trip to Yunnan province in the south of China. We were traveling again with Don and Eve and also Sharon and Bill Crabb. Our first stop was Lijiang, a small city of about a million people. It is located on a high plateau with an altitude of about 2500 meters. The most beautiful part of the city is called the “Old Town” where we stayed in a courtyard hotel. Streams and narrow stone streets wind among the Naxi style buildings of the Old Town. The Old Town is very touristy with lots of shops, restaurants and bars but still very beautiful. There seem to be pictures wherever you turn. About 20 kilometers outside the town is Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a snow capped mountain that provides a spectacular backdrop for the town.
Our first full day in Lijiang featured a cable car and hike part way up the Snow Mountain to the Yak Meadow at 3600 meters. Needless to say we were moving pretty slowly at that altitude, but I got to ride a yak and we took pictures in native costumes and shopped for souvenirs from the Tibetan vendors there. We also had lunch at a small outdoor barbeque restaurant, a meal which featured barbequed yak meat, yak cheese, roasted potatoes and butter tea which is a salty concoction made from yak butter. The butter tea is reputed to be very good for your voice, which may be true as a clear voiced Tibetan girl serenaded us as we dined.
On the way back from the mountain, we made several stops including the Rock village, a Naxi village where an Austrian-American professor lived for many years in the 1920’s and 30’s studying the plants, language and culture of the area. Rock’s story and pictures were published in National Geographic magazine and some people believe his stories may have inspired James Hilton to write “Lost Horizon”, the story of Shangri-La. We visited the Rock museum, but the village itself was more interesting. According to Diana, it was a poor Naxi village and the homes were built mostly from stone and many of the people wore traditional Naxi clothes, especially the older women.
From what we learned from Diana, the Naxi culture is matriarchal with the women doing most of the work and holding the purse strings. Diana said that Naxi men had four jobs: drinking, smoking, playing music and studying the Naxi language. Seems like an equitable division of labour to me! The weather in the mountains changes quickly. When we left the bus, it was hot and we were all in shirtsleeves. When we returned to the bus about an hour later, it was raining and hailing!
The Chinese Culture Club organized our tour again and they pack a lot into a day. So on Wednesday, Don and I played hooky from the tour and found a wonderful golf course – the Lijiang Old Town course. I shot an 82 and the course was in absolutely beautiful condition, so we were both refreshed and happy when we caught up with the girls for dinner. Meanwhile the girls went to Naxi Princess Mu’s jade shop, a Tibetan village and a lake. We met the girls after golf and rallied for dinner – pizza, Chinese food and beer – sounds like a strange combination but it was surprisingly tasty. Later, Brenda and I and Sharon and Bill went to a concert of Naxi music, which featured very old men, playing ancient music (Tang and Ming dynasty) on old-fashioned instruments. The music was surprisingly good and quite interesting. We followed the concert with dessert and coffee and some late-night shopping.
The following day was a travel day so we were up early and on the road to Shangri-La. We stopped on the way to hike the trail to Tiger Leaping Gorge, a spectacular gorge on the Yangtze River. The drop from the top of the sheer cliffs to the water was 4000 meters. We were on the bus for about 4 hours that day and the terrain and roads were mountainous – Brenda did not enjoy the ride!
Now about Shangri-La – in one sense, this really is Shangri-La. It used to be called Zhong Dian, but two years ago the town changed its name to Shangri-La citing the evidence of the Joseph Rock writings and pictures about the place and also the fact that it used to be part of Tibet that was taken over by Chinese troops. Now in another sense it seems an unlikely sort of Shangri-La. For one thing, there was lots of construction going on as new hotels are being built all over the city and the Old Town is also being rebuilt. This sounds odd but it is a very Chinese phenomenon. They are always rebuilding their past, whether it is the Great Wall, Bhuddist temples or the Zhong Dian Old Town. The Chinese tend to be deliberately vague about what is original and what is a reconstruction. They would like to have you think that you are seeing the actual historic sites, but in fact many of them were completely or partially destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
Another factor that makes Zhong Dian an unlikely Shangri-La is the weather. I always pictured Shangri-La as a warm climate. This Shangri-La is at 3600 meters and it doesn’t get very warm. In fact as soon as the sun begins to set you need a jacket. Our local guide told us that the week before we arrived it had snowed there and the morning we left it was -2 degrees! We were also advised to buy a can of oxygen before we arrived and we felt some symptoms of the thin air. Brenda had headaches and we both felt short of breath at times. We downed the whole can on our last night in Shangri-La, which made for some funny pictures of us sniffing oxygen.
On our first evening in Shangri-La. we went to a cultural song and dance performance, which featured lots of dancing and wonderful costumes although much of the musical was heavily amplified with a disco beat! It was quite a contrast to the naxi concert in Lijiang. The dancing was actually quite entertaining as was the performance at the table next to us where a group of 40ish local men were entertaining a group of teenage girls with beer and bijou. The girls kept giggling together and running out to the bathroom. We weren’t sure what was going on but we had an idea. Finally, our guide complained to the management and the party seemed to move to a different venue.
The following morning we were up early to see the local Bhuddist monastery, a kind of mini-Potala Palace. Afterwards we went to a Tibetan village and toured a Tibetan family home. After a hotel lunch, we boarded the bus again for a mountain drive to see the black pottery village, a small Naxi village, which makes a distinctive black pottery. Then we returned to Shangri-La for a walk around the Old Town and a visit to the local temple, which features the world’s largest prayer wheel. By this time, the troops were restless and some struck off on their own. Brenda and I and Don and Eve and several others went to a local restaurant for a much-needed coffee before meeting the rest of the group for dinner. The Chinese Culture Club really keeps the pace lively on its tours, but fortunately we got the evening off and most of the group assembled in the lobby of the hotel for drinks, oxygen and story telling.
The next day was an easy flight back to Beijing; we were back in the apartment about 3:30. Sunday consisted of a golf day for me with the Beijing Golfers Club, then some marking and planning to get ready for the new term and finally in the evening I went out to a local club to meet some friends and see three Canadian groups play – the Road Hammers, Alun Piggins and the Jimmy Swift Band. All in all it was a pretty good holiday, but not exactly a restful one. 8 weeks to go!
