Shangri-La ain't so Shangri-La!
Well this weekend we've been stuck in Zhongdian which is being marketed as the Shangri-la of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" but it doesn't really float our boats to be honest. It's a bit of a one-horse town, well there's plenty of people, but not an awful lot to do and we couldn't get our traveller's cheques changed. Maybe in a few year's time it'll be a different place, Westerners are definitely in the minority at the moment and travel information can be hard to pull together, but we're getting there! We've put off going to Deqin until tomorrow, which is probably a good thing anyway - gives us a chance to chill out. We're actually at an altitude of 3300m so we're back into long trousers and wearing our fleeces in the evenings and yesterday we were a bit headachey and walking up steps was killing us!Today's excitement was going in a tuk-tuk! It's a brilliant wee thing. It can fit 5 people, has a radio and even a sun-roof. We're tempted to go cruising round the town tonight!!!!

Yesterday we went to a big monastery on the edge of the town, apparently there are 600 monks there. It was extremely unimpressive! It was really funny, at one point we were walking into some kind of shrine where we could see a wee monk whom we thought at first was praying or chanting away to himself, but then as soon as he saw us he put his mobile phone away in his cloak and then lifted up some wee drum and started chanting. Now that really takes the biscuit! A lot of the shrines etc seemed to be asking for offerings of money and then promising the giver good fortune and happiness in the future. Hmm I don't think so! Outside the monastery there were loads of touristy shops so it just seems to be a marketing exercise - I think we've had quite enough of monasterys.

I forgot to tell you about Flip the dog the other day! On Thursday when we left Tiger Leaping Gorge, along the road we walked past a guesthouse when a dog started to follow us. We didn't really think much about it until we realised that the dog kept following us... I'm serious but this dog followed us the 40km to Haba! Shane kept calling the dog Flip and Melanie and I were wondering if this was some traditional Aussie name for dogs, when it turned out that he called it that because at one point Melanie said, "Flip, the dog is still following us!" We got quite attached to Flip that day, it was hilarious, he just followed us the whole way, stopped with us when we took a break, and kept waiting for us to catch up with him when we lagged behind. Sadly we had to leave him behind in Haba as we got onto a bus for Zhongdian so we're hoping that the inn we stayed at adopts him - he'd already made friends with their dog whom we called Jester because of the bells round his collar. Ahh wee Flip, you were a true companion!

Well it's over and out for now, not sure when I'll next get to update, so in the meantime take care peeps!

PS. Unfortunately I can never actually view my own blog-site nor other's people's blogs, chinese internet doesn't seem to like it. So I haven't been able to hear other people's news nor read any comments you're leaving - sorry! But please feel free to say hello anyway, will love hearing from you whenever I get to read the messages!