Shangri-La

Those who set out for Shangri-La usually have high expectations of their destination. It is not surprising, they seek somewhere as paradisiacal as author James Hilton’s description of the fictional place in his novel Lost Horizon. When I headed for a town with the aforementioned name in Yunnan, China, my anticipation was moderate. I had learned that the naming was simply a marketing ploy from 2001, to attract tourists. When I arrived however, it turned out that I had stumbled completely by surprise at the most bizarre place of my trip: a large part of Shangri-La’s old town had accidentally burned down two weeks earlier. It was heartbreaking, but also very impressive walking through the ruins of the devastated community.

Shangri-La (China), February 2014