Having passing the mile long queue of coaches packed with Chinese tourists who never make it passed the upper gorge and returned to Shangri La , where our flight to Lhasa was leaving, we had a day free. We decided to hire some bikes and have a little pedal around the countryside. We headed north to a shallow lake passing small villages with the harvest in full swing and the hay drying in huge wooden racks, herds of yak grazing
on the plain, beautiful mountain peaks and we decided that we could easily have spent another week exploring the surrounding area and hiking the high mountains further north.I should really explain the title of this post. As Tibet has been subject to so much intrusion by the Chinese government and there is such a high military and police presence, some people say that areas that are now
outside the current Tibetan Autonomous Region (as it is now called) but were included in what was the kingdom of Tibet are actually the areas where Tibetan culture and lifestyle has remained mostly untouched. Shangri La and the whole of north Yunnan province I believe can be included in this category. How much that is true or not is impossible for me to say but it does make for an interesting sub-note to the whole Tibetan saga.
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