China Trip: Shangrila

Shangrila is one of places that I wanted to go so so much. It is described as nearly heaven by James Hilton in his book "Shangrila". A happy and isolated place from the outside world, with friendly citizen, that is Shangrila. I imagined it as a green wonderland with colourful flowers and cows everywhere. However it was totally different from my imagination! That is just because of different season. It's just beginning of summer in mid of March. Hence there is no greenland and flowers, but dull chocolate color field everywhere, and snowing most of the time.




The popular spot in Shangrila is Pu-Da-Cuo National Park. 普达措国家公园.
The area is huge that we need to travel by their environmental-friendly car.
The average altitude at Pu-Da-Cuo National Park is around 3500m in height. Hence all movement should be slow, (despite the frozen toe due to super cold weather).
Although huge, all the places look the same for me as it was snowing everywhere.



Pu-Da-Cuo National Park is China's first national park.

While the region comprises only 0.7 percent of China's land area, it contains more than 20 percent of the country’s plant species, about one-third of its mammal and bird species and almost 100 endangered species.
~~ sources from http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/asiaandthepacific/china/placesweprotect/pudacuo-national-park.xml~~







It should be a worth place to visit. However i suggest that it should be visited during spring or autumn, and not when the place is freezing cold in winter or early summer.

China Trip: Li Jiang Yu Long Snow Mountain

Location: (Mandarin)玉龙雪山
(English) Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

Jade Dragon snow mountain is located at Li Jiang. The peak is called Shanzidou (扇子陡), with a altitude of 5,596m.

This is the first time i see snow, and the first time i see snow mountain just right in front of both my eyes, while standing in the middle of strong wind. We took a small van from Li Jiang Shu He old town, and the driver was so careful that he drived slowly so that we can suit our body to the altitude changes. It's a bit hard to breath, as the place is more than 3km in height.
On that morning, it's started to snow, and hence along the way, we can only see half of the snow mountain.




Visitors can choose to hike to the next station or take the cable car. This is the cable car to take tourist up to more than 4km station. Unfortunately, it's hard to see anything on top as it's started to snow. But it's snowing romantically.








There are also two beautiful tourist spots named Blue Moon Valley and White Water Terraces.

蓝月谷
Blue Moon Valley





白水河
White river water terraces





And we were so excited to see this hairy animal! It's called 牦牛, Yaks. I guess this must be a very old yak (look at the hair!)..We can find lots of product sold in Li Jiang town made from yaks, such as dried yaks meat, Chopstick, Comb, keychain, etc.



During the trip, we were advised to take more chocolate and sips of long breath from air in small oxygen tank bought from the shops nearby. I personally think chocolate did help, but not the oxygen tank. Although tiring due to the high altitude, this trip to Jade Dragon snow mountain is definitely worth it.

China Trip: Kun Ming Stone Forest

Location: (Mandarin) 昆明市石林风景区
(English) Shilin National Scenic Area

In Shilin National Scenic Area, you can visit Greater & Lesser Stone Forest (大石林、小石林) and Naigu Stone Forest (乃古石林). The Greater and Lesser Stone Forest are so huge that it took us at least a few hours visiting only stone in the jungle. Luckily we hire a tour-guide or else we must have got lost in the jungle. The stone forest and a village called Suogeyi have been listed as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Hence, they are away from industrial area.















Girl in Kun Ming is called as "A-shi-ma" in their language. The stone looked like a girl is believed to have its own fairy tales, a girl who is waiting for her "A-hei-ge".
The details of the story can be read from this link (in mandarin):






We used up lots of energy walking in the huge area of stone forest especially under the hot sun. But this is really a worth and highly recommended place to visit in Kun Ming, Yunnan.

China Trip: Kun ming Cherry Blossom

There were five of us, did our own study on the place we were going to visit. Yes, we want to see the snow mountain, we want to see the cherry blossom, we want to visit Shangrila! So we headed to Yunnan! We started with booking flight tickets, planned out our own intinerary, prepare own passport and china visa, do some online booking for accomodation, THAT's IT. We started our journey!

During the 11-day trip, we traveled to alot of places, and here it goes:

Penang- Kun Ming (Flight)
Kun Ming- Li Jiang (Flight)
Li Jiang- Shang-ri-la (Bus)
Shang-ri-la- Li Jiang (Bus)
Li Jiang- Dali (Train)
Dali- Kun Ming (Bus)
And finally from Kun Ming back to Penang by Flight.

We enjoyed our pleasant flight with Thai Airlines, and we were treated well with the nice and clean food.

But it was a bit scary when firstly reached Kun Ming Airport. I still remember that there were a few ladies who approached us, offering to bring us to our destination, by offering cheaper price. But we were not sure if we can reach our destination if we follow them. We wouldn't know if they were to bring us to places we didn't know!(As there were five of us, we have to be seperated into two taxi, and we might get lost). Eventually we managed to take taxi seperately and reached our hotel.

We headed to the first destination: 圆通动物园 for the 樱花节 Cherry Blossom festival
We asked around for direction, we tried to took taxi but rejected because of the terrific traffic jam in the town, we then walked by ourselves and it took nearly 1 hour to reach the destination.
We were not disappointed, as there were really alot of blooming cherry blossom.









But it was really a tiring night for us, after having good exercise in our cherry-blossom-hunting.