Turtle Mountain Gear & Outfitters

”Outfitting Your Shangri-la Experience”

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Address:

32 Gun Ma Lang

Old Town, Shangri-la

Yunnan Prov.  674400

Phone:  86-887-823-3308

Mobile:  13988780844

              15096405130

Email:  turtlemountaingear@gmail.com

Dear fellow travelers, explorers, sojourners, and friends:

 

China continues to be on many travelers’ list of favorite places to visit.  Be it the rich culture, or the culinary delights offered at the table or on the street, or even the friendliness of most of the Chinese, China can generally be agreed upon as very welcoming. 

As far as places to explore go, many experts agree that China holds some of the most beautiful, remote, and untouched places on earth to visit—certainly in Asia.  But in western China, unlike many other remote wilderness areas in other regions of the world, it is possible to add to your love of the outdoors meaningful cultural experiences.

For example, coupled with great mountains, grasslands, forests, and lakes, your adventure can take you to Kham Tibetan villages, or other minority areas, where, along with fantastic natural beauty, you can experience the beauty of ‘people,’ your fellow human friends, whose customs, dress, food, and story may be unlike yours, but equal to yours in significance and uniqueness. 

We at Turtle Mountain Gear & Outfitters have as our creed not only the desire to visit the natural wonders of Shangri-la, but to leave something of ourselves behind—smiles, kindness, and help—if we are able—to the places and people where we adventure.

And Shangri-la is just this—a dynamic place of beauty and variety, where 100 ft pine trees grow next to bamboo copses, where Tibetans live next to Lisu, Naxi, and Yi, where the terrain changes from valley to valley, and where you can seek out that inner peace that comes through the connection between nature and humanity.

This is not to say that all is perfect in paradise.  Shangri-la faces many problems that are common to almost all developing regions in a country such as China.  Deforestation and environmental degradation are two such examples.  Sustainable livelihoods for remote mountain communities is another.  Social concerns such as health and education also need to be addressed, as well as other inter-connecting issues facing rural China. 

We founded Turtle Mt. from the belief that it is possible to enjoy and respect the land we visit, as well as learn from and share in the wisdom of the local inhabitants.  Our holistic approach to adventure is not original, but it is our belief that not only can we lead cutting edge adventures, but those explorations can be an important part of the solution to some of our hosts needs.

Our website is intended to give you an overall look into the people and places that make up Shangri-la.  While not exhaustive, our intention is to piqué your interest enough so that you will contact us and begin to put together the kind of adventure that you’ve always dreamed.  As far as that is possible, we’ll try to make it happen for you.

And beware!  Traipsing around western China can get addicting! We’ve been doing it for ten years now, with no immediate end in sight!

Kevin Skalsky

Shangri-la, China

March 4, 2009

Turtle Mt. from the south.  It’s really a small hill, but this is where the town of Zhongdian (renamed Shangri-la in 2001) began.  There is a spring that flows from under the mountain, and early Tibetan settlers first established their town of Gyalthang beneath its clear waters.

In 2003, the world’s largest prayer wheel was built adjoining the temple on top, and it takes all the strength you can muster to move the wheel clockwise.  The Old Town in Shangri-la is constantly changing, with many old buildings being renovated.

Turtle Mt. is often the focus of many a picture, and also the object of modern art and avant-garde interpretations.  In this photo, Will Cruickshank used Turtle Mt. as a backdrop to hang his iconic “Three Wheeler”, using cantilever logs and ropes. 

Tourists flock to Turtle Mt., many of them to illicit blessings from the various gods and spirits that inhabit the small hill.  The climb might surprise you, as the elevation and stairs can take your breath away.

turtlemountaingear@gmail.com

Dateline: December, 2001

“Western Myth becomes Chinese Reality”

James Hilton immortalized the concept of “Shangri-la,” a mythical utopia on earth, in his novel Lost Horizons in 1933.  A land full of beauty and wisdom, Shangri-la, according to Hilton, exemplifies all that is lovely, peaceful, and harmonious.  Scholars agree, however, that Hilton’s model of Shangri-la was probably based on the Tibetan myth of “Shambhala”.  Hilton’s work was also conceived from romantic notions of explorers and travelers who brought back stories of an untouched paradise.  Since 1933, numerous claims have sprung up declaring the true Shangri-la’s exact geographic location.  But in December 2001, a challenge from a remote county in China’s northwest Yunnan Province took hold.  After a hard fought lobbying effort, the State Council granted Zhongdian County, over multiple claims from neighboring areas, permission to change its name to Xianggelila County.Paradise has a place!  That place is in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) is composed of three counties, Shangri-la, Deqin ,and the Weixi Lisu Autonomous County. In 1990, the area had a total population of almost 354,000, of which 84 per cent were ethnic minorities.  Tibetans number around 33 per cent of those minorities, or approximately 116,000.  The three counties also have Lisu, Naxi, Bai, Yi, Mosuo, Hui, Miao, and Pumi minority populations, but except for the Lisu, are significantly smaller in numbers than the Tibetans.  Zhongdian is the capital of the Diqing TAP, and also serves as the county seat for Shangri-la County.  Shangri-la County is also the largest county by area in Yunnan Province, covering 11,345 square kilometers.  To the north and east is the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Sichuan Province,to the south, Lijiang Naxi Autonomous Prefecture (NAP) ,and to the southeast and northeast of Deqin and Weixi Counties, lie the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture (LAP) and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)   One marked distinction is that the Diqing TAP does not

Photographs:

All photos, except otherwise cited, by:  Kevin, Jonas, Lynn, Amos, and Josiah Skalsky and taken, without exception, in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China

Black and white photographs on this page taken from:  Lost Horizon, by James Hilton;; Yunnan People’s Publishing House

Lost Horizon, by James Hilton, 1933, Pocket Books, New York

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People ask us

“Where are you from?”

border any traditional Han Chinese areas, thus the area has been influenced by trade and customs from a variety of other ethnic minorities.

Traditionally, the Diqing TAP has had strategic commercial significance based on its frontier position between central Tibet and other ethnic nationality regions to the south.  An ancient trade route called the “Tea and Horse Road” was a major transportation link between Yunnan and Lhasa . Tea, an important commodity to Tibetans for their staple yak butter tea, was sought in exchange for horses, which were needed in other areas of Yunnan for their transportation and commercial value.  Additionally, the route through Diqing to Lhasa has meaningful political ramifications.  In 1720, a Qing army entered Tibet via Kham and Diqing to oust the Dzungar Mongols from Lhasa.  Recognizing the strategic importance of the Diqing region, the Qing quickly set up a garrisoned post at Gyalthang, which they called the Zhongdian.  Since then the region has always been valued for its proximity to Tibet and its alternative route into Lhasa.

Topography has played an important role in Shangri-la County’s development, or as the case may be, limited development.  The highest point in Yunnan, Meili Xue Shan is 6740 meters (22,000 ft.) above sea

level.  With an average elevation of around 3,300 meters (11,000 feet), the short growing season of late-May through September limits the variety and amount of crops and vegetables to be grown.  Highland barley is the staple, with potatoes, turnips, rape seed and some oats being grown, and with small pockets of rice cultivated at lower elevations.  Other important crops include wheat, walnuts and some fruit, in limited quantities.  One important cash crop, growing wild amongst the forested mountain areas, is the matsutake mushroom, a delicacy especially on Japanese and Korean tables.  Found with great effort and diligent searching, songrong mushrooms are often the only source of cash to many households.  Other herbal medicinal plants are also found in the high alpine areas and sold to herbal medicine traders, who in turn sell them to the eastern and southern markets in China.  Most rural households rely on some form of animal husbandry, which has dominated the rural population’s livelihood; with yaks, pigs, and goats being the most prominent.

During the 1960s, large-scale commercial logging was the largest industry in the prefecture, county, and even the township levels, bringing in almost 80 per cent of Diqing TAP’s gross domestic product (GDP).  However, due to severe flooding in the lower-lying areas of the Yangzi River basin in 1997 and 1998, which the Chinese government blamed on logging practices in the upper watersheds of the mountainous west, all commercial cutting of timber was abolished.   In one fell swoop, many villages and townships lost their main source of

income. Soon after, the Diqing government began to promote the area as a tourist destination, offering a unique blend of Tibetan flavor coupled with scenic outdoor beauty.  Three lakes (one seasonal) are within ninety minutes drive from the town center of Zhongdian, and limestone terraces, scenic river canyons, and open grassland within a few hours drive are the main natural attractions for tourists.  Tibetan culture is also promoted through home-style ethnic dancing and singing found in many made-for-tourists’ entertainment centers.  Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and holy sites also draw visitors interested in seeing a Tibet-like atmosphere without having to go to Tibet itself.

Tourism has brought in much needed investment, with the transportation infrastructure seeing significant improvements in recent years.  Shangri-la airport opened in May of 1999 with daily flights to Kunming,the capital of Yunnan Province, twice-weekly flights to Lhasa and Chengdu,and charter flights from Beijing,Shanghai,and Guangzhou during peak season.  There are also plans for direct flights from Hong Kong and Katmandu.  Road improvements connecting Zhongdian with Lijiang, Yunnan’s premier tourist destination four hours to the south, is also sure to increase tourist flows. 

All in all, establishing Shangri-la has paid off for county revenues.  Tourist numbers have doubled to over one million visitors in the year of 1998-99.  Over sixty hotels of various sizes and quality exist in Zhongdian, with more being built every year.  The government has completed a new waterworks and sanitation project, beautified the main streets, built a new government building and bus station, and have paved and widened the main roads to Deqin and Weixi.  Economic growth has led to other benefits for the area.   Social arrangements have improved somewhat, with hospital and school upgrades taking place in Zhongdian, as well as the county seats of Deqin and Weixi.

The consensus is that there is yet a long way to go to live up to the name of “paradise on earth”.

                                                                                           Kevin Skalsky

                                                                                           Excerpted from “Perceptions towards Education for Development in Shangri-la”

                                                                                           Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, MA in Development Studies Thesis