Shangri-La

At 8:15 I had to leave my wonderful hotel room for breakfast. Today only tea, banana and some delicious cookies for me. This morning my driver Leun brought me to the visitor center of Puda Tso National Park. The setup is just like in the National Parks of the USA. Just the lodges are missing. I took the shuttle bus to the lake and took the 2.5 km walk along the lake with Prima. I walked slowly and used all the toilets along the way. Besides the altitude of 3500m slows down. Then we used the shuttle bus to see the view spots and skipped the additional walks. I took pictures from yak meadow, lake with fantastical view of snow mountains and huge fir trees. Lunch we had in old town Shangri-La. Well, I had just a delicious fruit salad with yak yogurt (I little more sour than yogurt from cow milk). Two Tibetan children just looked very interested through the window next to our table. Leun drove me to my hotel to rest for one and half of an hour. The guide as well as the driver just realized, that I need some rest. In general the guides are very busy to fulfill all the wishes of their clients and even to discover their possible wishes. To the driver and guides I give good tips. They deserve it. Besides I have to fill out evaluation sheets for all the local guides and drivers. After the nap we started on the way to Songzanlin Monastery also called Little Potala. You can see the whole Monastery on the picture. The Temple and the praying house are from 1679 ( 2 left of the top buildings) and restored after the cultural revolution. The right building of the top three was just built last year. Rich people donate money and the tourists help too with their entrance fees.
To climb ut the steps to the top needed some rest in between. There you feel the 3400 meters in altitude. This evening I asked the Hotel Manager for her advice about the different massages they offer. Her recommendation was the Angsana massage, a very good advice. After 2 hours of massage with well smelling oil I feel like new born. The 490 Yuan was worth evry Yuan. To help me over the time I had to wait for the massage the Hotel Manager invited me to ginger tea. This delicious tea cured me. You want the recipe? Crushed old ginger (keeps longer in the soil and thus is stronger than the ginger we buy in store) cook together with Chinese black tea and then add some honey.
The Hotel Manager asked me for the recipe of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.
Now it is 11 o´clock and I am not tired anymore. I´ll try if the bar is open to drink a local Dali beer. You see, I am fine again.