New Year's eve in Kunming - Journal Day 6 of 8

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We were taking the morning flight from Shangri-La to Kunming.

It's only 15 minutes drive by taxi from Dukezong Ancient Town to Diqing Shangri-La Airport (DIG).

It's not a big airport, but it's not small too, there are souvenirs shops and restaurants that we can have our breakfast there.

New year's eve in Kunming

There were no much things to do to spend new year's eve in China, especially in Kunming, (do not expect fireworks....) and even some hotels don't have any special events, so we went to the Green Lake that night which had one event at The Park Bar and Grill with live music until new year's countdown.

Location The Park Bar and Grill 

Green Lake Park (Cui Hu Park)

Telp : 15368171162

There are a lot of food stalls and drinks with the famous Yunnan's special Shangrila beer stalls outside the bar that we can choose while enjoying the live music. 

Live music starts from 7:30 till 12:30 pm. 

And the good things was free entry to enjoy the music during new year's eve!

Shangri-La "the Eden in Dream" - Journal Day 5 of 8 - Songzanlin Monastery, Potatso (Pudacuo) National Park

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Songzanlin Monastery 

Songzanlin Monastery or The Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery, it is at elevation 3,380 metres has another alias - 'the little Potala Palace ', so named because the whole monastery is in the traditional style with mysterious atmosphere.

The entrance ticket is RMB115/person, and to get to the Monastery, you need to take free yellow bus for about 15 minutes near the ticket office, or you can take public blue bus no. 3 from the city.

Built in 1679, the monastery is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan province. Located in the capital of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, it is also the most important monastery in southwest China.

The Monastery was the highlight of the visit to Shangri-La. Be prepared for a climb to the top - there are many stairs. It is very interesting to walk through the Monastery at the summit, and the view across the plain is worth the effort. Although it was not easy to climb a few hundreds steps in high altitude with low oxygen.

If you have time, take a walk around the lake, which you can see the wooden path near the lake in front of the Monastery entrance, where you can get some amazing photos of the monastery reflecting on the lake. It only takes about 30 min to walk around the entire lake.

Potatso (Pudacuo) National Park

In Sanscrit, "Pota" means the same as "Putuo" in Buddhism, while "Cuo" means "lake" in Tibetan language. "Potatso" therefore means "a lake which releases living beings from suffering".

It located about 13.5 miles (22km) southwest and 40 minutes drive from Shangri-la downtown area. It is renowned for well-preserved primitive landscape, which is endowed with lakes, wetlands, forests, meadows, streams, brooks, rare plants and animals. 

The ticket fare is RMB258 (including RMB138 admission fee and RMB120 sightseeing bus fee). 

In the park, there are three main scenic areas open to visitors: Shudu Lake in the north, Bita Lake in the south, and Militang Alpine Pasture in the middle. The sightseeing buses run among these scenic spots and stop at fixed stations. Passengers can get on and off freely with one ticket.

Shudu Lake is the first stop of sightseeing bus, It is about almost half hour bus ride from the sightseeing bus stop from the park entrance. The lake was frozen when we came there in end of December.

 

At Militang Alpine Pasture, people are only given 10 minutes for shooting and viewing the grandeur grassland while bused on route from Shudu Lake to Bita Lake. Militang in Tibetan dialect means "Buddha's-eye grassland". It is a famous highland pasture in Shangri-La.

The last stop of the travel route is Bitahai Lake, which is located in the south part of the park. It is the key scenic spot of this park. The altitude of the lake surface is 3, 539 meters above sea level.

Giant Prayer Wheel

We arrived at the old town in the afternoon, and after finished dinner near the old town, we went to The giant prayer wheel just next to the Dukezong Ancient Town. And it is time for us to say good bye to our nice driver as she will return back to Lijiang, and we could walk back to our hotel and exploring the old town by ourself that night.

An eye-catching 24 meter (80-foot) tall golden prayer wheel sits on a hill. It has become an authentic building because local Buddhists now climb the hill to spin it to submit their prayers. When we got down to the carpark, there was very little time left to explore the ancient town. We went back to our hotel and explored the old town and found that most shops had closed.  So we directly go to our hotel, turned the heater in our room,  have a good sleep to prepare another journey to Kunming the next morning.

Shangri-La "the Eden in Dream" - Journal Day 4 of 8 - Lijiang, First Bend of Yangtze River, Stone Drum town, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Shangri-la

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Since it first appeared in British novelist James Hilton's Lost Horizon in the 1939, it has been associated with a mystique place which could not possibly exist here on Earth. In Tibetan, Shangri-La means the "sun and moon in heart", an ideal home only found in heaven.

We departed from Lijiang at 08:00 in the morning by renting a car with driver to Shangrila, and we booked her for 2 days trip at Shangri-La from Lijiang (yes...the driver is a lady, and she was super nice!! I would recommend her to anyone). 

It's about 175 kilometers (108.74 miles) from Lijiang to Shangri-La. At an average altitude of more than 3,000 meters (about 9,843 feet), this city is quite difficult to be reached. There are no railways leading there at this moment, the only transportation is by car or taking long distance bus.

On the way, our driver offered us to buy some apple which we saw some people selling on the side road, we stopped and the seller took us to his farm house to choose from there and we experience the most fresh apples that we ever taste, it was so juicy and sweet without any additional chemical which we can found at supermarket at the big cities.

The First Bend of the Yangtze River & Stone Drum town

After 1 and half hour drive from Lijiang, we stopped for a while at the photo spot of the first bend of Yangtze river, it is just next to the main road. Yangtze River, considers the mother river of China, flows majestically through the center of China and is the third longest river in the world.

We continue exploring the village near by from this first bend of Yangtze river, Stone Drum town, which is only few minutes away from the photo spot. Stone Drum Town is beside the First Bend of the Yangtze River. The reason for the name of the town is that there is a white marble monument in the shape of a drum in the town.

There is a famous iron chain bridge called Tiehong Bridge, it resembles the shape of a rainbow arching over the waves below, spanning across the river that flows along from the left side of Stone Drum Town. 

The iron chain bridge was built during the Qing Dynasty with wooden boards held onto the iron chains on the bottom as the flooring and on the both sides as fence to protect the walkers. 17 meters in length, people would be feeling a bit wiggling while on it, but it does send them back to the snapshots of history.

Stone Drum town was a significant and vitally strategic military area where many famous historical events have been taken place. It was here that Zhuge Liang, the famous and highly military strategist of the Three Kingdoms Period, chose to cross the Yangtze River and gain "battle advantage" over his opponents. 

The first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan, used this place for his expeditionary forces to ferry across the river. 

In April 1936, the Second Route of the Red Army, led by General He Long and Ren bishi, crossed the river here and continued to march north. There are memorials here honoring the people whose histories are entwined with the Stone Drum Town.

The road sign of some attractions around Shangri-La, we found on the way between first bend of Yangtze to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hǔtiào Xiá)

We continued our journey around 1 hour drive to Tiger Leaping Gorge, we paid the entrance ticket for RMB65/person. When we arrived at the parking area, you already have a splendid view on the wild part of the river and the huge mountains that together form the Gorge.

A stair leads you down to the river, but keep in mind that it are in total 440 steps down and up again. 

In the middle of the smallest section of the river there is a big rock. It is told that at this point a chased tiger escaped a hunter by jumping over the river.

At a maximum depth of approximately 3790 meters (12434 feet) from river to mountain peak, Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest and most spectacular river canyons in the world.

it's easy taking stairs down to see the main area of tiger gorge, but it hard and need some effort to go up by stairs to exit which is the only way to the parking area, so you will need to consider to take more time  to exit when you are with elderly people.

Journey to Shangri-La

After 2 hour drive from Tiger Gorge with amazing views of hills, tibetan villages, horses and yak on the meadow which you will see on the way to Shangri-La.

For some people might fell uncomfortable due to high altitude sickness. So, it's advisable to bring oxygen canister with you while you are in Shangri-La (can be bought in many supermarket/hotel around this area).

We stayed at the old town village, Dukezong (独克宗), and luckily car can get it to the old town, so it is more convenient for us to go to our hotel. 

Some of the old town now is under renovation due to big fire in early January in 2014, About half of the old town was destroyed by the fire, half was spared.

There were not much things to do at night in Shangri-La, so we decided to join Tibetan dinner house with singing show and dancing performance. It started at 19:30 and its a thoroughly engaging show, just that it's all in Chinese.  The food is cooked in a hot pot in front of you with vegetables and many kind of meat, served with drinks such as butter milk, traditional wine (very strong!!)

We learnt one word that night; "Zha-xi-de-le", then....drank a cup of local wine...bottoms up! and again!

Proposing a Toast and Tea :

Before you drink a toast proposed by Tibetans, you should moisten your index fingers with the liquor, flick this finger three times, and then say "Zha-xi-de-le". ("Zha-xi-de-le" means "as lucky as one's wishes" in Tibetan.) According to the Tibetan customs, you should sip three times and the host will refill your cup three times. After that, you ought to drink up. If you really can not stand much liquor, you can tell the host politely.

To be continue : Day 5...

Lijiang "Oriental Venice" Journal Day 3 of 8 - Jade Dragon Mountain

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Day 3

Today we woke up at 07:00 and still very dark outside in this end of December in Lijiang, and we left hotel early when the sun has risen at 8:00 in the morning, and we hired taxi from the gate of old town to Jade Dragon Mountain ticket office (taxi waited us to buy ticket) and continue to main entrance & bus station of Jade Dragon Mountain for RMB100 one way, this seems the only way to safe time (especially during low season which public bus is not easy to get), and just found out that ticket office location is very far (which few km and definitely is not walking distance) to the main entrance & bus station of Jade Dragon Mountain.

Jade Dragon Mountain tickets (December 28, 2015) :
Bus : RMB 20/person
Cable Car : RMB180/person
Both paid at the ticket office

Entrance Fee (paid at the main gate which is not the same location as ticket office) : RMB130/person

The Legend of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

In ancient times, two twins Haba Snow mountain and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain lived in the area and panned for gold in the Golden Sand (Yangtze) River. One day an evil demon started to terrorize the river. The twins fought the demon and Haba died in the ensuing fight and Jade Dragon wore out 13 swords to defeat the demon.

After the fight Jade Dragon stood guard over the local people with his 13 swords. Over time the two brothers turned into snow covered mountains and the 13 swords became the 13 peaks.

At the visitors center there was a small queue as we came during low season in end of December, and later we were in the bus to the cable car station. In Lijiang town which is at about 2600 meters altitude, you are then at 3800 meters. The cable car takes you up to approximate 430 meters for 15 minutes and the last, and the most life challenging climb, is this 300 meters which you have to climb on stairs. 

Climbing up by stairs at that altitude is not easy, with very thin air to breath, we have to walk slowly, and we have to use oxygen can few times a long the way. But by the time when you reached at the top, the views are amazing! 

Resting at the highest area of 4680 m altitude Jade mountain while waiting the fog gone from covering the mountain. Need to be very quick when the sky is clear, because anytime the fog will cover the view again.

After we finished, we returned by cable car down, and continue to Blue Moon Valley, 白水台 Baishuitai by bus which we can find very easy at the exit.

There are 5 lakes in this area, the most famous one, and the first which visitor will see is White water River terrace which formed by runoff from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Yuye Lake, Jintai Lake, Langyue and the last one is Tingtao Lake.

There are options to take the battery car which need to pay ticket for RMB50/person after get down from the bus at the Blue Moon Valley, it takes you to 2 stops, one is the main area White Water River terrace and the second stop is at Tingtao Lake.
The water here is extremely clean as it is filtrated and purified by gravel and stones when running, and hasn't been polluted at all.

We returned to Lijiang town, by taking the minivan car, you can find this car from people carry small banner written "7....(with all in Chinese)", for RMB20/person, this car will departed after it full, and this will takes you back to anywhere around old town area in Lijiang.




To be continue : Day 4...