Yunnan - Zhongdian

After a 2 hour bus drive that I slept through we arrived at Zhongdian, which the Chinese government renamed Shangrila to promote tourism. There's really no such place as James Hilton's Shangrila...well there is now. It's a small unimpressive city in the foothills of Tibet. We ate lunch with our new guide Jiaxi. He's a big guy in Zhongdian. Both figuratively and literally. He's a big guy with an equally big dog, a Tibetan Mastiff. You probably haven't run into too many Tibetan Mastiffs. They're really rare. I heard this dog cost as much as a luxury sports car....

But Jiaxi...He runs a hotel, a restaurant, does some government work and works with an NGO. On top of that he drives the school bus that takes the children of Napa village to and from school in Zhongdian every week. He's a pretty cool guy. I heard he worked in south China during the Vietnam war building a road to supply the Viet Cong. He was only 13 at the time...

After lunch we headed to Napa. I should mention at this point that there was snow everywhere. Another group of students was doing the same trip we were but in reverse. They flew directly from Kunming to Zhongdian and stayed at Napa first. Their flight was delayed a day because of all the snow. It had snowed a foot before they got there and another foot or so during their stay. We weren't looking forward to all the snow, especially after the coldness of Haerbin and  relative pleasantness of Kunming. 

Before we got to Napa we made a stop by a Buddhist temple. I should say monastery. It was more of a monastery. It was a village built on a hill beside a lake. At the top of the hill sat a massive temple - full of monks. We didn't waste anytime. We walked straight up to the temple to have a look around. From the balcony we saw a little island with a small dome on it. We asked what it was for. They don't bury people in Buddhist culture but they do leave them, dismembered, in  small domes on little lake islands for birds to eat.....

To be honest I'm getting a little jaded when it comes to Buddhist temples. I've seen a lot of them so far. They're usually really pretty but oftentimes if you've seen one, you've seen them all. This one had a distinct difference. Monks. Lots of them. They all wore their traditional maroon garb and Nike sneakers. They all had brand new sneakers. Fashionable shoe wearing monks. And cell phones. I would see monks, young and old, take a break from meditation or chanting to text a friend. It all seemed a little...hokey. I might go as far as to say a racket. They depend on tourists and pilgrims to survive. Ordinarily this is fine, nothing wrong with living off tourism but there was nothing special about this place. It was just some guys hanging out in maroon in a candlelit room. I think we all know my stance on religion but this one is particularly silly. No one agrees about anything in it, and no one can really explain the mechanisms of it....or why I should give them money for incense or some beads.

Plugh....At least I bought a sweet "painting" of tiger leaping gorge outside the temple. Oh, I gave into the tourist in me. I bought those colorful Tibetan  prayer flags.

The bus drove us out of town a few minutes and literally dropped us on the side of the road. The only road to Napa was too snowy. We would have to walk down a muddy, snowy track to get to Napa. We were told it was a 10 minute or 3km walk. One of those amounts is was clearly wrong. We were hoping it was the 3km. But no, it really was 3 km. Nobody, except me, had proper snow shoes. I packed them just in case, not really thinking I'd need them. It was the best decision I have made in China. Everybody else had to put plastic bags over their shoes. We only walked for 10 minutes before Jiaxi came barreling down the road in his suitably big SUV, fully equipped with a snorkel and extra gas tank at the back. How far are we going? There wasn't enough room for all of us in the car so a 6 of us sat on the top. I've never ridden an elephant but I bet it was like our ride into Napa. The road was already in poor condition and the snow made it worse. We, or at least I, held on for dear life as we tumbled along the makeshift road, in a constant state of fishtailing. At one point the road became a bridge. At first the road hugged Napa Lake but eventually it left the safety of land and wondered out into the lake. To our left and right there was water, only 4 feet from the wheels. Freezing cold, semi frozen lake water. And we were inside and on top a vehicle barely being controlled by the driver. 

Napa was going to be interesting......