After surviving the Tiger Leaping Gorge the day before we started our day with a hearty breakfast at the Tibet Guesthouse. Babsi started her day with a Tibetan dish called Tsampa (some kind of flour that’s then mixed with butter tea), which she didn’t care for much and a Naxi sandwich (just look at her face when she goes from Tsampa to sandwich). I went for a plain apple pancake with honey. It was boring due to little to no apple and even less honey. At least it was filling.
Babsi sampling Tsampa @Tibet guesthouse
We left the guest house with our three companions for the day
food is carried from the kitchen below via this wooden ladder to the guests above @Tibet guesthouse
the Tiger Leaping Gorge from the tail end @Yunnan
and headed to the white water terraces Baishuitai. I have already seen some in Pamukkale but these looked especially white in the brochure. When we arrived there shortly before 11am I knew why they looked this way. Even here the Chinese can’t keep their hands off and have to interfere with nature. Lots of the pools have been man-made and were still empty. On the upper levels the water was not flowing enough and developed algae. Still I got some nice shots of the white water terraces out of it and the scenery was amazing.
view on Baishuitai @Yunnan
From there we went for lunch at a Naxi (a minority in the province of Yunnan) restaurant which was just excellent, the best we had so far in this trip. The vegetables and the food overall were just so fresh and tasty!
delectable lunch at Naxi restaurant @Yunnan
all gone in 15 minutes @Yunnan
We drove into Shangri-la (which is actually called Zhongshan and just got the name from the book the Lost Horizon to attract tourists) and got picked up by the entrance to the old city from our host of the Timeless Inn. It was a quaint little place, which was run by a Chinese woman and her Tibetan boyfriend. We moved into our room and set down for tea to arranged a tour with the Tibetan host for the next day.
breakfast/common room @Timeless Inn
We strolled through the old town for a bit and then had already dinner where I tried the local momos. They were different from the ones in Tibet and Nepal with a lot more dough around them. I couldn’t even finish them (or was it the cheesecake in the afternoon?). We also shared a vegetables soup, as usual with a bit of meat inside. The concept of meatless dishes is really hard to grasp for Chines people. and then Babsi tried some vegetables balls that looked more like meatballs but apparently tasted fantastic. Yours, Pollybert
cheese cake with cherries @Shangri-La
vegetable soup with a bit of beef @Shangri-La
vegetable balls @Shangri-La
food in the first picture looks like wallpaper-glue – according to Babsi´s facial expression it also tasted like it ;-)
It tasted awful but it was totally vegan and therefore exactly right for her