Shangri'la

Lijaing and Shangri'la were great. Mountains, food and people are great. The people I have been traveling with have made me feel very welcome and have helped me over come the language barrier. Although sometimes they help me too much, I feel like a young child sometimes. I wish I could understand Chinese though the Shangri'la guide didn't speak English but he talked constantly about the history sights and culture and everyone seemed interested the whole time.

Last night we went to a Shangri'la public house for dinner (made up of mostly Yak), wine, dance and song. The people there were excellent dancers and singers. During the group dances I got up and danced a couple of times. The last dance turned into was kind of a Tibetan rave and people were dancing everywhere. A guide from one of the other buses was encouraged to by her tour group to dance with the Mei Gou Ren so I started dancing with her. I was a star for while until I realized people were stopping and watching us and I got too self conscious so I pretended to get tired so I could stop dancing.

I also found out I am not in as bad of shape as I thought. We went to 3900 (around 13,000 feet, you might want to check my math on that) today and walked along a large lake at 3700 meters today and I was one of the few who did not use oxygen. The only time I was at all short of breath was when I had someone from another tour group offered to take my picture in front of a herd of Yaks. He took so long that I had to run to catch up to my group. That was when I remembered I was at altitude, but I regained my breath surprisingly quick.

On the way back to Lijiang I found out what Naxi men do; they construct roads in the region. It was very interesting and somewhat alarming to watch these men working with trucks, buses and cars squeezing by on a mountain road that seemed much too narrow for these large vehicles. One of these day I will have to describe transportation in China. Which is the interaction of pedestrians, bikes, scooters, trackers, cars, taxis, truck and buses all vying for the same spot. There actually does seem to be order on the roads. But the rules seem very fluid.