Zhongdian

The adventure has started!
I'm now in Zhongdian aka Shangri-la according to the local government, but I reckon the 'real' Shangri-la would be a few degrees warmer than this! We arrived here yesterday morning (early), and it's great up here! The first thing you notice is that you're a little breathless, as the altitude is 3200m, so we've been taking it slowly and acclimatising. The mountains in the distance have snow on them and that is where we are hopefully headed. Mum is worried about the altitude, and I'm worried about the cold, but I just spoke with some Australian blokes that live round here and they said the temperatures are about the same there.
As for the famed Shangri-la it is a mainly Tibetan town, with a huge monastery out of town that we visted today. The houses around the monastery for the monks seemed like a whole town! I'll see if I can post a picture of it some time as I don't know if I can really describe it that well, other than it was big, with lots of gold stuff on it :). And while we were there it snowed a tinsey bit.
We have been drinking lots of ginger tea to keep warm, in a 'cafe' which seems to patronised by card playing locals and beer drinking monks (sneaking out from the monastery probably). It has the best heating we've discovered in town.

Last night we went to the square where there were heaps of people doing what we thought looked a bit like Tibetan line dancing. They had poppy Tibetan music playing, and we doing dances in big circles. The older women in traditional dress were the best dancers, but there were heaps of younger people too. We wondered if it was put on for tourists (not that there seem to be any at this time of year, but when we asked someone she said it wasn't- just because it was so cold in the evenings they go and dance (the insides of the buildings are not very warm either as wood is expensive here). I reckon it is a bit of a pick-up place too, as afterwards they all go drink tea or stronger stuff in the cafes around the square.

Our guest house has electric blankets, and I was fairly toasty last night despite the cracks in the wooden wall! A down jacked donated to me by a lady in Kunming heading to Laos has been a godsend during the day- it has become my 'wardrobe' or should I say 'suitcase' staple.

So now we are faced with the descision whether to journey over some very high passes (I think 5000 m) to get to Deqin which is only 3500, or to go in the other direction which will take us lower and warmer- which we will be doing eventually. I think tomorrow will be another acclimatising day though.