I am risking my life to bring you this live report from Shangri-la, Yunnan province, 3,400 metres above sea level. Am suffering from altitude sickness, and against advice, I just took a hot bath. If you don't hear from me again, you know the reason.
Quote from: Monoriu on April 02, 2010, 07:24:41 AM
I am risking my life to bring you this live report from Shangri-la, Yunnan province, 3,400 metres above sea level. Am suffering from altitude sickness, and against advice, I just took a hot bath. If you don't hear from me again, you know the reason.
Ok, thanks! :)
Quote from: Monoriu on April 02, 2010, 07:24:41 AM
If you don't hear from me again, you know the reason.
Arrested for spying?
Ran off to join Fulan Gong?
Beaten up by waiters for ordering excessive free tea?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJa51ztGa9Q
Mono, if my post gets you in trouble with Big Brother I am wicked sorry. :Embarrass:
Pics... of the Yeti please.
FREE TIBET!
(hey, he's in the PRC, wonder what'll happen)
Mono will be fine. His skin has the healthy tone of old ivory.
Quote from: The Brain on April 02, 2010, 09:06:33 AM
Mono will be fine. His skin has the healthy tone of old ivory.
I hope they don't eat him thinking he's a tusk or something.
Quote from: Tyr on April 02, 2010, 08:08:47 AM
FREE TIBET!
... with any two Buddhist countries of equal or greater value.
Today only!
Quote from: grumbler on April 02, 2010, 09:57:16 AM
Quote from: Tyr on April 02, 2010, 08:08:47 AM
FREE TIBET!
... with any two Buddhist countries of equal or greater value.
Today only!
:huh:
:lmfao:
Back. One of the first things I did after getting back was climbing some stairs. I wanted to make sure that I don't need oxygen cannisters to do so anymore.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2010, 07:38:28 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on April 02, 2010, 07:24:41 AM
If you don't hear from me again, you know the reason.
Arrested for spying?
Ran off to join Fulan Gong?
Beaten up by waiters for ordering excessive free tea?
Altitude sickness :P Piles of panadol extra prevented my head from exploding.
Quote from: Monoriu on April 05, 2010, 03:09:40 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2010, 07:38:28 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on April 02, 2010, 07:24:41 AM
If you don't hear from me again, you know the reason.
Arrested for spying?
Ran off to join Fulan Gong?
Beaten up by waiters for ordering excessive free tea?
Altitude sickness :P Piles of panadol extra prevented my head from exploding.
I had a dose of that in Lhasa. Similar altitude. No oxygen equipment, though.
Careful Monny. I hear your government kills the weak and bills the family for the cost of hauling the body to the local dog food factory. :(
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on April 06, 2010, 06:26:33 AM
Careful Monny. I hear your government kills the weak and bills the family for the cost of hauling the body to the local dog food factory. :(
:huh: "Dog: food" means something completely different in Chinese, and they don't process them in factories, but in individual kitchens.
Meant for export.
Quote from: grumbler on April 06, 2010, 06:33:09 AM
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on April 06, 2010, 06:26:33 AM
Careful Monny. I hear your government kills the weak and bills the family for the cost of hauling the body to the local dog food factory. :(
:huh: "Dog: food" means something completely different in Chinese, and they don't process them in factories, but in individual kitchens.
Quote from: lustindarkness on April 02, 2010, 07:48:49 AM
Pics... of the Yeti please.
Recently captured Oriental Yeti
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7557799/Oriental-yeti-discovered-in-China.html
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Ftelegraph%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F01610%2Fyeti_1610004c.jpg&hash=bb851e307addffe1c3b7aad58e95204e3e05029c)
How very disgusting. Looks like some kind of freakish mutant dog.
My wife has always insisted that she can't go to Tibet because of the altitude. We just found out that -
Lhasa: about 3,600 metres above sea level.
Shangri-la: about 3,400 metres. Some of the places we went to actually were over 4,000 metres above sea level.
I am going to visit: Tibet :bowler:
Well duh.
I was born at 3,000 meters above sea level.
Although Shangri-la is in Yunnan province, the majority of the population is Tibetan. All the signs are bilingual - Chinese and Tibetan. On the highway from Lijiang to Shangri-la, there were dozens of bill boards advertising Tibetan ceremonial daggers. "Imitated by hundreds, surpassed by none - buy xxx daggers". "Cuts iron like butter". Etc.
It wasn't that long ago that we were on a road in a poor part of the world. The trip reminded us of the Sri Lankan journey. Now, Yunnan is one of the poorer parts of China. But it looks much better than Sri Lanka. The livestock looked normal, the roads were all paved, the houses were made of well-aligned bricks and had a proper roof. In Sri Lanka, most of the livestock and pets looked like they were about to collaspe any minute, and there was not much between their skin and bones. The houses were made of an assortment of trash that had plenty of holes. The "roads" were just clearings and open spaces between buildings. Most strikingly, there were hills of uncollected domestic waste on the roadsides.
One thing I really don't miss is Tibetan food. There are good reasons why Tibetan cuisine is not very well known, and there are few Tibetan restaurants. Their best dish is hotpot (slices of meat, potato, tofu and veggies cooked in beef/chicken stock), which is decent. Next is a bunch of dishes made from their unique "hairy cattle". No matter what beef dish I ordered, the meat always came in thin slices. That's a good sign that the meat is very chewy and dry, instead of tender and juicy.
My altitude sickness was made worse by the fact that I developed severe digestive problems. There was so much gas being produced inside me that if I slept for 2-3 hours, I would wake up looking pregnant. I soon realized that my stomach refused to digest the Tibetan beef (I can eat beef with no problem anywhere else in the world).
The hotel was built on a hillside, for the view. First sign of trouble was when the Tibetan bell boy took our 22+kg luggage and walked up the 30 steps of stairs or so to get to our room, as if nothing happened. I was carrying nothing but I couldn't follow him, at all. My lungs were breathing as if I just worked out in a gym for more than an hour. The temperatures were close to zero C, so I was breathing in icy air.
Before we left HK, Yunnan featured in the headlines. They were suffering from one of the worst droughts in living memory. It rained/snowed non-stop while we were there. I demand to be hailed as a deity.
Did you take any part of that elevated rail line? That is one thing I want to do if I ever travel to China.
Quote from: Monoriu on April 09, 2010, 03:11:59 PMI am going to visit: Tibet :bowler:
Imperialist oppressor. :mad:
:P
By the way, I was under the impression that Shangri-La is a fictional place...
Quote from: Zanza on April 10, 2010, 01:09:55 AM
By the way, I was under the impression that Shangri-La is a fictional place...
:huh: About as fictional as Rohan and The Shire in New Zealand.
Quote from: katmai on April 09, 2010, 03:35:45 PM
I was born at 3,000 meters above sea level.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi13.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa299%2FSlayhem%2FSuper_Guppy.jpg&hash=92040a8f11e327a4e195d661c26c83b12a78241f)
?
Quote from: Zanza on April 10, 2010, 01:09:55 AM
By the way, I was under the impression that Shangri-La is a fictional place...
It was. Then someone figured out renaming a place that would be good tourist advertising.
Quote from: Zanza on April 10, 2010, 01:09:55 AM
By the way, I was under the impression that Shangri-La is a fictional place...
It was also an Essex class carrier.
Quote from: starbright on April 10, 2010, 12:56:00 AM
Did you take any part of that elevated rail line? That is one thing I want to do if I ever travel to China.
No. I went to Yunnan. The rail line connects Lhasa with Qinghai, many hundreds of miles from where I went to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingzang_railway
Quote from: Zanza on April 10, 2010, 01:09:55 AM
By the way, I was under the impression that Shangri-La is a fictional place...
From wiki-
QuoteThe county was formerly called Zhongdian County (Chinese: 中甸县 Zhōngdiàn Xiàn) but was renamed in 2001 after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the 1933 James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote tourism in the area. The local Tibetan population refers to it by the name Gyalthang (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ཐང་རྫོང་). "Shangri-La" or "Zhongdian" may also refer to Jiantang Town (建塘镇 Jiàntáng Zhèn), the capital of the county.
Pudacuo National Park was the highlight of our trip.
http://www.seeyunnan.net/view.asp?id=150
Imagine - suffering from headache, having taken tablet after tablet of panadol extra every 3 hours, farting every minute due to indigestion, I saw...gasp...STAIRS in the park. That was the only part of the trip that I HAD to breathe oxygen. Parts of the park was over 4,000 metres above sea level. 5 steps up, 1 minute of rest and oxygen.
The pictures lied BTW. The meadow was littered with cattle dung :P But otherwise it was worth it.
Just before we left, the bus guide told us that we only saw a very small part of the park. Not talking about geographic coverage - it's because you guys had yet to see how the place looked in the other 3 seasons.
Damn right.