The hostel lady insisted on inviting us as her guests for breakfast this morning - so more butter tea and baba bread. She has been trying to learn a few words of English since we arrived (don't think many foreigners stay here) and spend most of the breakfast telling us she liked us!! After breakfast we got the bus back to Lijiang where I was to be finally reunited with my luggage after 4 days!! Checked into the Panba hostel in Lijiang and went for lunch in the...

Got up early this morning as we had heard there was to be a big show to celebrate the New Year in the Town square. When we arrived the were lots of people there all gathered around in their minority costumes while each group put on a performance. The children did dances and there were dragon dances. After this we walked around the town and then went with Tanya and Jonathon to the bus station to see them off and buy our tickets back to Lijiang for tomorrow. We...

Another quiet day for New Year. The lady running the hostel made breakfast for us - baba bread and butter tea (I'm getting used to it now) and then we went for a walk around the old town. Stopped for coffee in an Art Gallery where the owner invited us back to the bar for the evening so that he could draw our portraits. Had dinner with the hostel lady who had laid on a feast of duck, tofu, vegetables and rice then went back to the bar. We were a group of 7 at ...

New Year's Eve. We all had a really lazy day with the excuse being that everything in the town was closed up for the New Year celebrations. Also, Tanya was feeling pretty rough with altitude sickness - Shangri-la is 3,200m above sea level. We went for dinner at a Tibetian restaurant where we had dumplings and butter tea, then stayed to welcome in the New Year. There were hundreds of fireworks and firecrackers going off constantly for about an hour from midnig...

Had a lie-in this morning to recover from the 2 day trek and then had a leisurely brunch with the others. Then we got a minibus to Shangri-la - otherwise known as Zhongdian. This place is supposed to be the place to visit if you can't get to Tibet, and sure enough as we drove towards the town you could see the buildings and wildlife bcoming more as I would imagine Tibet to be. We arrived at midday and checked into Barley's Guest House after much debate, then had ...