March 2008, Lijiang, China

Lijiang is located on the north side of the Himalaya Mountains 1,500 km east of Mount Everest and approximately 150 km from the Tibetan boarder in Yunnan Provence.

In 1933 the nearby mountains inspired James Hilton to write Lost Horizons the book that popularized the term Shangri-La. Citing extracts from Hilton’s book, some areas of China, such as the scenic town of Lijiang now claim they were the inspiration for Shangri-La. The neighboring county of Zhongdian in Yunnan has gone so far as to officially rename itself as Xianggelila (Shangri-La).When no one was looking I kicked the dirt in a couple of places but found no signs of a hidden diamond.

The day after visiting the lamasery in Shangri-La I headed two and a half hours southwest of Lijiang to Shibao Shan (Mountain).

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