The town of Shangri-La used to go by the name of Zhongdian but after the bestselling book called Lost Horizons described a location that resembled the town they decided to rename it. Sadly in 2014 a devastating fire tore through the old town, destroying over 200 wooden houses which were up to 1000 years old. The town has since been rebuilt and they’ve done a good job of trying to keep the old style with intricate wooden carvings on the buildings. There was a big police presence and even more cctv cameras than normal. But the police seemed different here, they were dressed in tight black clothing and some had SWORDS tucked into their waistbands.

We arrived from our hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge wearing shorts and a strap top and were hit by an arctic blast. Shangri-La sits at 3200m and the temperate change was a complete shock – even though we’d been fairly high up at the gorge, maybe this place had a micro climate. We checked into an ice-cold hotel room, wrapped up in all our layers and headed out along the cobbled lanes in search of a place to eat dinner. We ended up finding a cute Tibetan restaurant selling yak hotpot for a very reasonably 68 yuan which is about £7. We’ve never had a hot pot before and it was something Craig really wanted to experience. As we sat down the owner placed a notepad and pen on our table and we suddenly realised what was happening, he wanted us to write down our food order – in Chinese. For fucks sake. I was about to attempt pen to paper when a customer noticed our panicked faces and came over to help translate. She kindly wrote our order down and handed it to the owner so we dodged that bullet.

The centre of the table had a hole in it where a gas stove sat and it was fired up so our pot of spicy broth could be heated up. Then the food started being delivered to the table, we had a plate of raw yak meat for Craig plus broccoli, greens and rice. We didn’t get much compared to the locals, it ends up being a really expensive meal out to be honest. The broth was very spicy but I enjoyed the flavour actually, letting my pieces of broccoli soak in it until it was time to pick them out with my chopsticks. Craig of course loved it, however we did go back again a few days later and the broth tasted totally different and lacked flavour which was a shame. At least it was an affordable hot pot as most places charge £15-20 for them.

We left the eatery and wondered around the lanes. They had a lot of arty shops, from carving leather into intricate pieces of art to humongous walls covered in fabulous thangka paintings, a slow work in progress with intricate pictures of Buddha, temples, flowers etc. Soon enough we ended up in the main square where music was blasting out and all of the locals had formed a circle so large that it needed to spiral inwards. Everyone was synchronised dancing to the music but we had no idea how they all knew the dance. It was really fun to watch as there was such a mix of people, elderly Tibetan ladies alongside young guys in adidas stripes. We particularly enjoyed watching three lads around our age. They were so well synchronised together, holding each others shoulder on the slow songs as they moved around the circle and kicking the air while spinning in circles for the upbeat songs. We met a really cute old guy with a huge, almost toothless smile who seemed very excited to see us. We had no idea what he was saying, he seemed to offer us some of his Pepsi and then did a lot of hand gestures, pointing to his heart and the sky. We also bumped into him the next day and he did a dancing impression to ask if we would be at the circle that evening. He was adorable, smiling constantly as he watched everyone spinning around the circle.

Shangri-La was also home to a beautiful temple atop a hill which had a large Buddha statue inside and multicoloured paintings and fabric covering the walls. Below the temple was a humongous prayer wheel, one of the biggest in the world and it took at least 10 peoples strength to get it moving clockwise, even a little toddler was giving it a go. We headed to a milk tea shop nearby to try one of the fancy drinks topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. Ordering was very humorous as we and absolutely no idea what the translations meant but luckily the worker was very patient and found it quite funny too. It was £2 so a lot more than our usual 90p bubble tea drink so we just shared one but as we left the shop a young man said in English “please wait a moment” He didn’t work at the shop and we had no idea what we were waiting for but he brought over the same drink with whipped cream and said “this is for you” and then he smiled and left the shop. We were absolutely baffled, he didn’t even buy himself a drink, just one for us, it was so sweet and a testament to how kind Chinese people are.

A short bus ride from the old town was the impressive Songzanlin Monastery, the most important Buddhist site in Yunnan province. We opted to save money and walk from the entrance to the monastery instead of taking the shuttle. We veered off the road and joined a lakeside trail where we had reflections of the monastery in the calm water and prayer flags surrounding a nearby gompa. While we had the lake mostly to ourselves everything changed as we entered the complex. It was heaving with people but the frustrating thing was that 80% of them were in fancy-dress Tibetan clothing and only at the monastery to do a photo shoot. I’m really growing to dislike this new Chinese trend, every other shop rents costumes and the sights are packed with domestic tourists dressed up and posing endlessly. What’s even more frustrating is when they do it at religious sights like this, posing next to prayer wheels and preventing people from being able to spin them.

Anyway, we followed the main stairs up and veered off occasionally to explore alleyways and mustard coloured buildings with fabric flapping around the window frames. The monastery’s were very impressive inside with the most intricate murals covering the walls. I loved how detailed they were, literally every wall and ceiling regardless of how high was covered in paintings. One of the buildings had some stairs we were allowed to go up, we didn’t really know where they led to but we followed some corridors where the walls were covered in a kaleidoscope of paintings. We found some more stairs and headed up until we were standing on the monastery roof with shiny golden roofs next to us and a mountain backdrop. As we reached the top we heard some sort of deep horns being blown which was clearly the call to prayer as the monks suddenly dashed downstairs.

We were able to enter the room where all of the monks were praying which was really nice to witness as they chanted in unison. We did a couple of laps around the room and stood to watch for a while. After praying the monks were all given a cup of hot yaks milk. All of the monasteries accept donations and while there was cash resting on tables and ledges next to Buddha statues there were also QR codes so locals could pay on their phones. They also had the option to pay to light a candle which varied from about £6 to £60 plus, just to light the candle, they don’t get to keep it. We had a nice time exploring the monastery though, it was a beautiful sight to witness and Shangri-La ended up being a nice base for us between hiking trips.