Mushypea

This is the ride I’ve been looking forward to the most in China, the ride to Shangri-La.  Confusingly Shangri-La is a county, a city, an old town and appears not only in Yunnan, but also Sichuan so it’s a little confusing to know where to head to.  The city of Zhongdian (or to give it its Tibetan name, Gyalthang) was officially renamed Shangri-La in 2002 and with that the floodgates of tourism burst open.  Clever marketing or could Gyalthang really be the location of James Hilton’s Utopian ideal.  May be the governors of Yunnan were on to something, perhaps they had stumbled upon additional information from Mr Hilton’s research – additional information that is not covered in his novel, Lost Horizon?

And if this is true, may be James Hilton had indeed based the location of Shangri-La on information pertaining to Shambhala?  Could the key lie with “The Governor” of Yunnan as Xuen Ke hinted?  I wanted to find out.

Heading north

The ride from Lijiang through Snow Mountain National Park to Gyalthang has to be the wettest, muddiest ride on this trip to date.  It just didn’t stop raining since I crossed the Yangtze river at the eastern end of Tiger Leaping Gorge. I took what I thought was going to be a less travelled back road from Doc Rock’s old home in Yu-Hu village, to the small ferry town of Daju at the end of the 15 km long gorge.  How little I underestimated the reach of the tourist coach!  I counted 31 coaches neatly queued in front of snow mountain!

After Snow Mountain, I had the road to Daju to myself as the coaches turned back towards Lijiang.  The road narrows and winds it’s way through beautiful meadows and valleys before arriving at Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) 90 km away.  The descent in to TLG is a very steep and slippery single track which drops like a stone to three rather shonky looking passenger ferries far below.  Two local lads from Daju helped me to get down the trail with my gear – it took three of us half an hour to reach the river.  Once safely down, I grabbed one of the old ferries to the other side and began a sweet 5 hour climb out to the mountain village at the top of the pass where I set up camp.

The road to Shangri-La is paved with, well, er actually it’s just paved all the way these days.

Cycling is starting to feel like my job now.  I get up at 6am, have breakfast and pack up camp.  After a quick double check to make sure nothing has been left behind I ease in to a 12 hour day saying NeeHow to the farmers, herders and workers in the fields.  As I climb higher the rains begin to fall quite heavily and I take cover in road repairers huts gathering round a fire and drying my gear.  Note, waterproof socks – they aren’t waterproof :o)

After three beautiful (if wet) days on the best road I have ridden in China (actually I was hoping this road would still be dirt – it seems these days the road to Shangri-La is paved with, well, er, it’s just paved) I arrived into “The La” looking like a drowned rat and found myself in a construction site, not quite the entrance I was expecting.  It seems that I may have arrived in Shangri-La, but there should be a *Under Construction sign at the entrance of the new town.

During the second world war, the route south from the silk road to Lijiang was the main caravan route to Kunming – the provincial capital of Yunnan. The roles that Lijiang & Dali played during this time has been well documented, but Gyalthang’s history I hadn’t heard as much about.  As you wander through the cobbled alley ways of Lijiang it’s easy to be transported back to a time when horse drawn caravans would have poured in to the towns to trade their merchandise brought from over the Himalayas along the silk road. Horses would be fed and watered, saddles and boots repaired, Chinese tea bought and loaded. The tea houses and inns would have been a buzz with tribes people from the mountain regions trading, toasting and celebrating an end to an often perilous journey of several months. The work of these brave men was work especially important during the second world war when Japan had blocked off trade through Burma.  The ending of the second world war also signified the end to the caravans.

Me: “Please may I see the most important governor in Yunnan, pretty please?”

Soldier: “no”

I found myself in the Governor of Yunnan Province Palace being questioned in quite some detail – it’s a little long winded to tell the story in a blog but let’s just say my encounter involved two armed soldiers, an hour’s questioning by four officials in leather chairs wanting to know exactly what I was writing and why (actually this was quite scary as they thought I had been riding in restricted areas of Tibet until I showed them my maps), some very comical efforts at me miming the words “Shambhala” & “bicycle”, and the secretary to the Governor of Yunnan brewing me the best mint tea I’ve ever had!

On the surface, the old town follows the same template as any other holiday towns in Yunnan – pubs, bars, scarf shops, silver ware shops, coffee shops, shops selling all manner of yak produce from tails to skulls, dried meat to horns.  Zhongdian, like Lijiang and Dali has it’s caravan history too, but you have to go looking for it – it’s not on display.

Oxygen is sold by the can here and prayer flags adorn the old square which comes alive with the best dancing after 7.30 pm each night – a real highlight for me – I sat for a couple of hours each night watching the old men & women lead the young teenagers in a huge circle in perfect synchronisation, just beautiful.

But where is the mountain (Mt Karakal) which dominates the photographs of Shangri-La on the Chinese postcards, let alone the monastery which is the centre piece of the fictional Shangri-La – I can’t see them here?  Well, as it turns out, the mountain could be 180 km away up a demolished road heading north west to Deqin, a stones throw away from the restricted Tibet Autonomous Region.  Interestingly, Deqin is also named Shangri-La – what is it with this place?

So that’s where I”m heading to next, Deqin.  Kevin Skalsky of Turtle Mountain Gear gave me a run down on what I can expect on the track, he dug out maps and showed me where he thought my best chances of getting through would be, “one guy left here two weeks ago wanting to ride to Deqin” he said enthusiastically.  “I haven’t heard from him since” he then added – great.  Kevin, a Seattle expat, and his family run an adventure outfit in the old town.  He first came to Zhongdian teaching for an NGO and has seen many changes in the 11 years he’s been here.

The road is closed due to construction and if the recent news reports are anything to go by, the rains from Sichuan are heading this way but I’m hoping I can get the bike through and may be even catch a glimpse of the famous peak.  May be I’ll find more clues about Shambhala there among the 4000m+ passes?

For me, Zhongdian/Gyalthang/Shangri-La, bares little physical resemblance to the image conjured up by Hilton’s Shangri-La.  Shangri-la faces many problems that are common to almost all developing regions in a country such as China.  Deforestation and environmental degradation are two such examples.  Sustainable livelihoods for remote mountain communities is another.  Social concerns such as health and education also need to be addressed, as well as other inter-connecting issues facing rural China.*1

Hilton hints that his hidden kingdom could be as far north west as the Kuen Lun mountains – which is no where near Yunnan.  One very Shangri-La aspect I can take away from Zhongdian however, is the memory of hundreds of smiling faces of the dancers each evening as they twirl and move together in time to the music in the mountains.  With the high altitude clean air, fertile land and beautiful setting, the residents here are seem proud & happy with their Shangri-La, whether based on fact or fiction.

Next stop, Dechin on the Tibetan border, and hopefully a glimpse of a very special and spiritual mountain which some believe could be Mt Karakal – the mountain depicted in Hilton’s Shangri-La.

Shangri La > Deqin

1: Taken from http://turtlemountaingear.com/

I just met with Xuan Ke again, the larger than life character from Lijiang who was instrumental in the name change of Zhongdian to Shangri-La back in the late 1990s after reading a copy of Lost Horizon by James Hilton.  Xuan is half Tibetan and half Naxi (pronounced Na-Khi) and is something of a local hero among the Chinese, especially in Yunnan Province.  Famed for being outspoken on the issues facing the ethnic minority Naxi, Xuan has travelled the world with his Naxi Orchestra which is based in the Old City of Lijiang.

I was in my element sifting through old & rare National Geographic magazines from the day when Xuan’s father was a translator for Joseph Rock back in the 1920s and 1930s.  His father also assisted General Stillwell in the translations needed for the Stillwell Road project in Burma (more on that later) and knew Peter Goullart, the Russian Toaist Doctor who recounts his time in Lijiang in his book, Forbidden Kingdom.  The book is a great read, taking the reader back to how market life would have been like back in the day and gives a very different view of life in Lijiang than the one portrayed by Rock.

Where to next?

Xuan gave me a lead in Zhongdian, a Government official who I must visit.  The official may have some information on the movements of Shambhala teachings from the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) through to Yunnan in and around what is now the known as “Shangri-La”.  I’ll be leaving north for the small village of Baisha tomorrow morning and visiting Joseph Rock’s old “National Geographic Headquarters”.  From here I’ll head north on a little used track (again, Google Maps shows only the first 60km of 180km) to Tiger Leaping Gorge (and work out how to get across with my bike!) before climbing in to Zhongdian and finally seeing the real “Shangri-La” for myself!

Can’t wait!