Day 5: 30th June 2011
We spent the night in Zhongdian at Hotel Shiner - a 4-star hotel - located at the new town area of Zhongdian. Being a very remote part of Yunnan - English was much less spoken than in the two towns we had been to. At our hotel it was completely impossible to get anything communicated to any of the staff - not even at the front-desk! Definitely not the 'zen' experience we were expecting to have in 'Shangrila'. The hotel was located next to a little river and garbage and sewage must have been dumped into it that pakdokter was awakened in the middle of the night short of breath. Pakdokter's first thought was that pakdokter was suffering from early symptoms of 'altitude sickness' as Zhongdian was located at an altitude of 3300 metres above sea level - well within the range where 'altitude sickness' can occur. But after a check - pakdokter discovered that pakdokter's partner had pulled open the windows as the aircondition was not effective and the stench from the river had 'choked' pakdokter. China as a whole suffers a shortage of power-supply so whenever and wherever they could they would not turn on the air-conditioning system in order to conserve energy. However it could be quite a choking experience if the hotel room was all locked and closed up with no fresh air. And the hotel restaurant was closed by 8 pm and we had to walk to another hotel where we managed to order with help from a kitchen staff who spoke a little English a plate of nasi goreng for each of us......
Next morning we made it to the mountains and the Paducuo National Park - located at 4300 metres above sea level. O the way we passed by the Banyan Tree Shangrial - a 6-star Singapore-owned luxury resort. Our guide, Mr Wang Da - a Tibetan - used to work there but left as the pay was just 600 yuan per month. Now he is a free-lance tourist guide - and the tips he earned from the different groups is probably many times over what he was paid by the luxury resort.
Mr Wang Da in his Tibetan costume....
On the was to the park, we stopped to look at a typical Tibetan House. The tibetan house is usually 3-storeys high - the lowest ground floor is where the animals live, the middle floor is the family living quarters and the top third floor is where they keep their grains and grass - for use during the winter season.
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