A little shopping was done after dinner one night. Paige found this patch "cowboy" hat that the hearders wear around here.
One of the courtyards of our hotel.
France and Christophe enjoying breakfast.
Something calming to start your day!
The luscious breakfast buffet.
Storey getting packed up first as we prepare to leave Lijiang. We have really enjoyed our time here, and David our guide is one of the best we have ever had.
Our troupe - ready to roll!
Storey takes the lead.
Following the Yangtze with some beautiful scenery. 
A star in the making - with a very serious camera man directing.
We stopped at Stone Drum Town which is at the bend of the Yangtze for a little tour and lunch. The vendor had red pepper cakes which I bought! Yum! Anyone want to come over for dinner??
Our choice of fresh vegetables as we eat with the locals.
There was a great confab over getting to inspect a tuc-tuc up close. Very exciting!
Heading into the mountains.
We have to say good-bye to our lovely guide David as we head into Shangri-la. He is not allowed to guide in this region. We must meet another guide, local to the area. He was fine, but David is a hard act to follow. He was very straight forward and didn't hesitate to answer questions in a somewhat honest fashion. Most guides (they are all employed by the government) really tow the party line. It is interesting how much a guide can effect how you feel about an area.
Our next stop was Tiger Leaping Gorge. We walk for about 2k along this placid river...
go through many tunnels dynamited out of the overhanging rock....
(maybe too many tourists getting taken out by falling rock!)
and slowly we come upon Tiger Leaping Gorge. Gorg - eous!
What do you know? At the end of the walk a nice ice cream treat awaits. More opportunity to buy, buy, buy!
It was stunning and powerful.
Christophe hiding his ice cream treat! No use hiding when I am going to tell, is there?
We made it to Shangri-la and headed right into dinner in a "traditional" restaurant. The guides do all the ordering (to our dismay many times as we like figuring it out) and the food started pouring in. It is always a feast. Shangri-la is very high, over 10,000 feet. Maybe 12,000. It was very cold. France experienced severe altitude sickness later.
We finally made it to our hotel. This is the lobby where we were checking in fairly late at night. We were greeted by lovely women offering warm tea and cookies - of a sort. Knowing that the heat is never turned on until you get there, we had asked for the room heaters to be turned on earlier. They said they were on, but alas, the rooms were freezing when we got there. Another beautiful courtyard hotel - 5 star they say. Well, the night was pretty miserable. Beautiful, but miserable. The bed was situated to that the one air vent blowing out "hot" air, was aimed directly at the bed. It was so cold that by the time the air made it to the bed, it was freezing. There were bed warmer pads we turned on, but for the queen bed, the pad was only in the middle section. I guess we had to cozy up anyway since the duvet on top didn't cover the width of the bed! If someone moved at all, the cover was pulled to them, sending the bed partner into screams of frigid agony! Not a good night. All kinds of complaining went on trying to fix some of these rather large details, but to no avail. Needless to say, we checked out of this quaint, beautiful hotel first thing in the morning and went into town to the standard Chinese huge hotel. It was warm and the beds were softer (oh yes, the other beds were made out of board!) so we were happy. Ahhh. Shangri-la. Not quite living up to its name. And then, of course, we find out why. It has only recently become Shangri-la! Its former name was, and still is known by, Zhongdian. The government decided that this region needed more tourism dollars (or kuai) so they renamed the town to get tourists up there! It is very close to Tibet and is lovely country, but it is certainly no Shangri-la. In fact, lore has it that Lijiang is the town that James Hilton was describing in Lost Horizon. Much more believable!
Off to one of the largest monastery's - off in the distance.
No pictures were allowed inside, but lots of incense, candles, chanting, statues, money offering stations. Very dark with separate rooms for different Buddha statues.
Gold roof shining in the sun. Lots of bells ringing around it to keep the birds away - no defecating here!
A mini city with monks everywhere and the people who service them. Interesting.
Still pretty chilly in our high altitude monastery. The views from this courtyard were astounding, mountains all around.Time to go!
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