After our hike, we spent a few days recovering in Shangri-La, the edge of the Tibetan frontier in the Yunnan province. We stayed at Tavern 47, a highly rated hostel in town, and got a damp private room in a noisy wooden building. While it was less than ideal, we did get a warm bed and our busy hostel owner walked us to her restaurant nearby that was serving a yummy yak hot pot for dinner 🙂

The next morning, Thom got to try tsampa, a Tibetan breakfast porridge made with roasted barley flour for breakfast, which he loved. After breakfast, we spent some time roaming around town and shopping for some souvenirs at some of the Tibetan handicraft stores in the old town. 

Shangri-la is home to the worlds largest Tibetan prayer wheel, which can be seen from the main square in town, where many Tibetans gather at night for traditional Tibetan dancing.    

Take a pic with a yak!


We found a delicious Indian/Nepali restaurant that was serving an absolutely amazing yak curry, so perfectly spiced and delicious!

We also had Tibetian dumplings called momo, and a rice with 8 ingredients, including raisins and some sort of bean. Mmm!  



One evening we strolled around the temples in town. Unfortunately pics can’t be taken inside, but I will tell you, it was gorgeous! We aren’t exactly sure what kind of temple it is, but there were quite a few Hindu-looking paintings on the wall and Tibetan prayer flags outside..

Prayer wheel lit up at night. 

Monestary on a hill.

People spinning the prayer wheel.

Prayer flags around the prayer wheel and monestary. 

Halfway through our time in Shangri-La, we switched to a nicer (and cheaper) hostel, called N’s kitchen (without a working kitchen at the time..) with better internet and spent some time researching what to do next in China. We had a week to fill before our flight out of Chengdu for India, and we had heard about a loop that can be done on public busses through the Tibetan areas of the Sichuan province, so we decided to give it a try. We headed out the next morning on an 8 hour bus ride over the mountain pass that separates the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, bound for Xangchang!