Which grade is our traveling? Fortunately, we'll show the Grade Corruption.

Day 1
I flew to Kunming, and then we flew to Shangri-la together. What we said Big Shangri-la includes the north-west area of Yunan Province. Narrow sense of Shangri-la means only Zhong Dian  town (or Di Qing district).Di Qing airport is very small. We spent RMB15 to take the taxi to town center.

On the way from airport, we found some flamboyant red plants. The taxi driver told us ,it was "Wolf Poison". In fact, it's innoxious. Such a ruthless name under their gorgeous appearance! I like.

When we arrived at the long-distance bus station, the early tickets to De Qin were sold up. We had to wait for almost 3H to get onto the bus of 12:00.

It would cost 6H from Zhong Dian to De Qin. On the way, we past those spots:

- Pa La Sea: it is a lake and many hikers didn't recommend. By the way, people here haven't been to sea, so they called lake as sea.

- Ben Zi Lan: it is a station in "Tea Horse Old Road" from ancient history till now. It is a small town. Many people, shops, transportation vehicles were here.

- The No.1 Turning of Gold Sand River: the current is more and more torrential. He said if Lan Cang River was a docile young lady, then Gold Sand River was a violent shrew.

- Dong Zhu Lin Temple: It is a Tibetan style temple, but those Lamas seemed not so decent. They were sleeping or lying beside of road.

This was a poisonous plant named. Its flower should be white, but was withered now, only spiny fruits left.

We took a taxi to the Viewing Platform, and spent RMB30 and 20 min. There were so many people, we were afraid of no vacant room for us. We asked several hostels. The price was more than RMB300, and no vacant or just one left. But we were lucky, the taxi driver helped us to find a new hostel, which was new-built and its location was not bad. The price was only RMB200.

Unlucky, when we were busy finding hostel, we missed the sunset of Meli Snow Mountain. Because of the bad weather, the sunset was not so splendid as I estimated.

It's time for dinner. There were only several restaurants, Price was not low, and please don't hope to get satisfying service. Only those local waiters were always smiling and smiling, maybe because of their natural optimistic characters.

We ordered a chicken hot-pot. As the time went by, food was more and more deficient. We got the last plate of lamb. The local cabbage tasted very sweet. No black spots on its surface, because it grew up on the cold place having no worms. He ordered some Qing Ke (a kind of local plant) wine too.

After dinner, we called the taxi driver of today, and asked him to take us to Ming Yong Glacier. The price was RMB200, so expensive, but we had no choice.

Day 2
I got up about 6:30AM. According to the weather of yesterday, it was so hard to see sunrise. But I could not but hope that God Mountain would give me a smile. After almost one hour's waiting, it proved in vain. Many disappointed persons gathered here, some of them set up professional cameras. Only a special funny man was shouting on the platform: Look, the peak appears. There. There.But no other people could see what he saw. Maybe he was too hopeful to see sunrise, and got hallucinosis.

Sigh! I left the huge pity in this place. I don't know when I can get here and see sunrise the next time. I bought a book of album, including 48 postcards. All of photos were extremely exquisite; I can imagine how tremendous the sunrise/sunset of Meli Snow Mountain could be.

Our driver arrived here 9:00AM. We met two foreigners and their guide, but a taxi could only let 4 persons sit in. So we could not share our taxi with them.

On the way, Virgin Forest seemed so colorful. In fact, if we came here half month later, we would see more colorful trees. Colors ranged from green, yellow to red, from bright to dark. I asked him:"Is there any swordsman who is practicing his Kong Fu Bible in a deep hole"

--"Yes. When he can do Kong Fu well, his master will ask him to walk in River and Lake."

Ming Yong Glacier's ticket was RMB63. Passed through the ticket office, road became to two directions, the other one was to Yu Beng.

Glacier was in the top of mountain, so we could choose to walk up there or ride horse. Usually, a round trip ticket by horse is RMB80, but on the National days, this price was just to send you to the top, didn't include sending back. The last stretch could not be opened to horse, so I had to walk by myself about almost one hour.

To me, climbing mountain in high attitude was very tiring-I had a little bit "High Altitude Reaction". I cannot climb too fast, not to mention running, otherwise, my heart would be beating faster and faster.(BTW: One of my friends told me, he and his wife would be breathless, even when they went to their room from the groundfloor to the second floor. )

Once, I heard a story that a strong man was died in Tibet because of "High Altitude Reaction", so I slowed down my movement in order not to die in Shangri-la. There are many beautiful spots I haven't seen, I didn't want to be dead at that time.

When I was climbing down the mountain, I felt better. I could walk very fast. The fresh air, the sunny shine, the blue sky, the gentle breeze, my sweat, even the smelly horse shit could really make me high.

We arrived at the bottom of mountain about 2:30PM. On the way back to De Qin, we came to Fei Lai Temple about 4:30PM. There were three places most suitable to viewing Meli Mountain: Viewing Platform, Tai Zi temple (on Glacier, We missed.) and Fei Lai Temple. This was a very small temple; we stayed here just for a while, and took some photos.

Came to De Qin, we met two drivers came from Zhong Dian, so we hitched a ride to Zhong Dian, only cost RMB100. In fact, this price was not cheap to us, but it's really cheap to them. Because renting a taxi from De Qin to Zhong Dian often costs RMB 300-400.

After about 5h, we got Zhong Dian. I suggested we get accommodation into multi-rooms of hostel, but he didn't agree with me. At last, we spent RMB350 into a hotel. We ate some stir-fried dishes in a small restaurant. It's very tasty, only cost RMN 24, including a bottle of wine.

Day 3
According to the hiker's recommendation which I printed before and took with, we found Qin Ke Hostel. The old town was like Li Jiang. Many old style hostels, shops were there, but not so commercialized as Li Jiang. Generally, these houses were built with wood, and curved with delicate patterns.

We bought two fried cakes as our lunch, then got going to Song Zan Lin Temple by bus No.3. Ticket was RMB 10. You also could go into from Bai Tower for free. However I don't recommend it. RMB 10 is not very expensive, and this temple is worthy of this price. Why do we save this little money and left bad impression here? We should escape only those tickets which not worthy their prices.

Song Zan Lin Temple were composed of several temples, the main temples were two. We followed a male guide, but his voice was not so clear, so we choose a female guide to follow. She explained very well. I know some historic and religion knowledge from her. The most famous frescos should be "Drive elephant into Tao" and "Six Taos Samsara". It's very interesting. The top of temple were splendid golden roof.

Came out from the biggest two temples, I parted from him, cause I wanted to visit White Tower. That was a Tibetan style tower, under the blue sky, it seemed special white. Many slates written scriptures were piled beside. Many colorful flags were hanged from the top of slate-pile to the ground.

There were many sword shops at the outside of Temple. I didn't like sword, but he liked. So we spent much time here. I thought the quality of Tibetan sword was not good. They just had complicated silver decoration on scabbards, interior was made by wood, and even some swords couldn't be pulled out freely. Some swords with good quality were from Yang Jiang, Guangdong, so we hadn't bought anyone.

Back to old town, we passed though the Young Hostel. I wrote our route of tomorrow on the blackboard, want to invite any partner, then we could share the transportation fare. Luckily, I received a call this evening, so I made an appointment with a driver.

Author: dandelion999 Date: July 11, 2006

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