Tibetan Food in Shangralila

In Shangralila, which is famous for its old town and Tibetan monastery, we had traditional Tibetan food. We did try Yak Butter tea but we were smart enough to only order one glass and not a whole pot. It tasted like warm, salty butter - almost like it should be poured on popcorn.

We also ordered yak meat, which was very tough but tasty and a curry type dish. I saw the owners eating it so I thought we should order it.

Also, we had yak cheese balls….. they tasted like fresh cheese or fresh quark fried a bit.

This restaurant was typical in the old town. It is a wooden building with the store or restaurant below and the family lives on the second floor in a big room overlooking the street. It was a very beautiful and cozy place for being in the mountains. Notice the wood stove in the middle of the room that was being used in June.

Tibetan Monastery - Shangri-La

This is where the monks lived. We peaked in the back room off of the temple.

Monks' Living Room

Huge Temple, there was a huge Golden Buddha in the temple at least three stories high, but we could not use our cameras inside.

Construction- they were tearing down the middle temple and builing a new one.

The Ganden Sumtseling Monastery, also known as Sungtseling and Guihuasi is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery situated 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the city of Zhongdian at elevation 3,380 metres (11,090 ft) in Yunnan province, China. Built in 1679, the monastery is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan province and is sometimes referred to as the Little Potala Palace. Located in the capital of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, it is also the most important monastery in southwest China.

It belongs to the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelukpa order of the Dalai Lama. The Fifth Dalai Lama's Buddhist visionary zeal established the monastery in Zhongdian, in 1679. Its architecture is a fusion of the Tibetan and Han Chinese. It was extensively damaged in the Cultural Revolution and subsequently rebuilt in 1983; at its peak, the monastery contained accommodation for 2000 monks; it currently accommodates in its rebuilt structures 700 monks in 200 associated houses.

Because of the popularity of James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon (novel) (1933), which introduced Shangri-La and is said have been written on an inspirational theme of "the Tibetan Buddhist Scriptures, where human beings, animals, and nature lived in harmony under the rule of a Tibetan", the Chinese authorities changed the name of Zhongdian County to Shangri-La County in 2001, basically to encourage tourism. The ambiance of the town is distinctly Tibetan with prayer flags fluttering, mountains known by holy names, lamaseries and rocks inscribed in Tibetan language with Buddhist sutras.

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