Korean Style Christmas in Shangri-La, China

I remember a Christmas I spent in Shangri-La, China. Despite being far away from home it turned out to be an memorable experience exploring the areas and having a Korean style Christmas dinner. A day preluding my arrival to Shangri-La, I was finishing the Tiger Leaping Gorge trail and at the end of it took the only bus available, to Shangri-La. It was an unexpected yet convenient departure that took me somewhere else to continue my walkabout across China. Although I had the opportunity to spend the night at the Tiger Leaping Gorge guest house I reconsidered after seeing a pig being cut to pieces from above the hill. It was not the act that disturbed me but rather how the four men held the pig while slowly cutting him to pieces as it squealed endlessly. Heck, be humane and kill the animal, then have your way with it. But who knows, it could have been some local tradition.

After getting on the bus, the drive was around four hours long to Shangri-La and I had a name of a hostel within the city. I asked the driver to drop me off close by it and explain how to get there if he knew. Upon arriving, my first impression of Shangri-La was that it’s really cold yet upon looking around feeling that time seems to stay still here. Like an old forgotten small town where people still follow the old ways of life. Following directions of the driver I found the hostel without getting in to too much trouble. It was owned by a Korean man and a Naxi wife. Naxi are the native people from the southwestern part of China that lived there before it’s integration in to the country. I decided to stay there for the night and make plans of what to do next.

At night I met Yuli, an Asian man from Canada who works in Hong Kong and is here for vacation. I saw him and a Korean man drinking beer while warming up next to the iron stove in the center of the main room. The Korean host was most generous and shared beers with Yuli and I as we talked, drank and had a good time sitting around the stove for the rest of the night. Turns out Yuli is studying to become a journalist and is in China to work and improve his Mandarin. The host enjoyed our company and gave us an endless amount of free beer. As we were talking, Yuli and I made plans to rent bikes and go exploring the following day.

Part 1, The Cave

In the morning we rented our bikes and went on our way. Yuli was fast and I was barely able to keep up with him. I am a natural walker but biking seems to require a different set of muscles. We had no real destination, just followed the road out of town and stopped along the way at anything interesting in sight. At some point we saw a small village and stopped there to look around.

Exploring the village I saw a small cave on a hill that was unearthed by accident at a construction site. I went to see it and although the entrance was small, the natural cave was big. The construction trucks must have been digging on the side of the hill to expand the road and opened it up by accident. The cave was fairly large with a greenish pool of water inside with a unique formation of rock surrounding it. It was pretty; we took a lot of photos. To be safe, we went inside one at a time because coming back up was steep and could have been a one way trip without help. I wonder what will happen to this cave in the future. Probably be berried or destroyed due to the road expansion.

Bicycles we rented for the day.

Construction site where the hill was dug in to for expansion.

The cave that was unearthed.

Inside the cave. It fascinated me and I went down to explore further. It’s bigger than the picture makes it out to be.

After exploring the cave, we kept driving along the countryside road. The scenery seemed unchanging so Yuli had a great idea to take a side road to nowhere. We kept going on the dirt trail until we came to a dead end with a fence in front of us. We walked alongside the fence and found an opening, deciding to push on forward. We were not sure where to go next until we saw a large hill with a tree at the top of it. Seemed like a good enough destination for us to go to.

Where should I go? Ahh, that tree looks interesting, lets go there.

It may seem warm, but its freezing cold outside. Even with the jacket, sweater, hat, gloves and driving on a bike, it was still chilly.

This is Yuli. We had a fun few days together and I visited him in Hong Kong later this trip. Thanks Yuli for all the great photos and memories.

Driving through the grass fields was fun, dodging cows, bulls and exceptionally angry boars that were unearthing ground for food. As we made it to the hill, we decided to make our own trail and get to the very top of it while carrying our bikes. Once we got to the top of the hill, the tree was not as interesting as it looked from the distance. But to our surprise, we saw two white horses roaming atop of it.

We took our time enjoying the scenery and taking photos. Yuli was going undercover and crawling on the ground with his camera taking photos of the horses. Was fun watching him be so serious. Another interesting object at the top of the hill was a small radio tower that had a fence around it. What fascinated me about it was the door attached to the fence. Imagine a door just standing there, in middle of nowhere atop a hill. The door fascinated me to no end. We had a field day taking photos of it.

The two horses we met at the top of the hill next to the tree.

Yuli being “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” getting the photos heh.

This is THE door. Looks totally cool and independent. “I exist, therefore I am!”

That’s me, standing at the top of the hill, overlooking the area.

After exploring the area we decided to take a chance and bike down the hill despite the probable dangers of falling. It was scary yet fun dodging holes, bushes and rocks. There was no trail, no road, just plain steep downhill biking. When we finally got down, we had to find a way past the fence to get back to the main road. As we kept hitting a dead end and not finding a way around it, I decided to scout ahead. At some point, I saw a local man standing and looking at us with curiosity. I took a chance and ask him for directions.

That’s me, slowing down for Yuli to take a picture.

Yuli and I approached the interested looking man and asked him for the best way to get back to main the road. Yuli did the translating and the man said that the way out is just further ahead. At the end of the conversation he asked us if we were hungry. We said “Yes!” He invited us in to his home and gave us a traditional Tibetan meal.

Part 2, The Pork Fat

He made the yak butter tea in front of us and explained how it’s prepared. I watched with fascination as he used a wooden churn to make it. I did not realize the amount of steps it took to make the tea; I appreciate drinking it a lot more now. The man also took out a bag of powdered barley, mixed it with the yak butter tea and made us use our hands to roll meatball size pieces of it to eat. It tasted like bread.

Step 1: Get the water to a boiling temperature. While the water is heating up, add salt. Once the water reaches the boiling temperature, add tea leaves. When the leaves are added, let it simmer for at least five minutes before moving on to the next step. Traditionally the dark tea that’s used is called pu-erh and is simmered for half a day before serving. Once the leaves have simmered, add Yak butter in to the wooden churn.

Step 2: Add boiling water inside the churn.

Step 3: Mash the butter and hot water for a few minutes.

Step 4: Place mashed content in to a separate container and pour it through the filter in to a cup to remove any lumps and tea leaves.

Step 5: Enjoy the tea!

This container holds barley flour. We took the flour and placed it in to a separate cup, added some hot Yak Butter Tea in to it and used our hands to mash it in to a ball. Afterwards we ate it. It tasted like bread.

A big ball of Yak butter that is used to make the tea.

He also let us eat pork fat pieces, which I devoured because I needed the extra fat. When I say it was pork fat pieces, I literally mean pork fat pieces. There was no meat on it, just a complete solid piece of fat. I am used to eating this kind of food and like it. Poor Yuli had such a difficult time eating the fat that he seemed like he was about to throw up at any moment.

After feeding and having us try the home made Yak Butter Tea, the host introduced us to his grandchild that was just recently born and told us stories of his family. At some point his wife came in as well and joined us for the festivities. We took a lot of photos together and thanks to Yuli, many pictures of me with the family. After the meal we tried to give them money for the food but they refused. We thanked them, said our goodbyes and moved on.

The man’s grandchild and wife.

They let me hold the child and take a photo with them. The kid kept looking at me even as I was leaving.

After getting back on the road we did not want to return to the hostel yet and decided to go somewhere else. We heard earlier that there was a beautiful lake about an hour out of town on a bicycle and decided to make that our next destination. As we were making our way there, I was struggling biking up the large hill roads while Yuli was way ahead of me. It was fun going the steep downhill though, I had to hold on to the breaks at all times or it felt like I’d start to fly. We arrived at the lake but to our surprise it was almost dried up. We decided to bike towards it off road and get a closer look. After a few miles we arrived at the lake and saw a lot of boars digging the earth for food. It was fascinating seeing them make holes with their tusks to search for what it seemed like worms.

The bulls and cows we passed while biking. I would not want to get it angry.

Two horses we saw on the way.

These hogs were everywhere. They are digging up the ground all day looking for food.

What do they find there anyway, worms and vegetation?

The empty lake felt a bit incomplete as our final destination here. So we looked at a nearby hill and decided to make its peak our new goal. The hill was too steep to take our bikes to the very top, so we left them behind and started our climb up. Once we reached the top, a beautiful view with a sunset greeted us. Upon further investigation we saw a lot of Tibetan prayer flags. As I was explained during my past trip to Tibet is that the prayer flags are commonly placed at the top of mountains and hills. Tibetans believe that their prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to spread the goodwill and compassion to all parts of the world. This was a good place to take a break, enjoy the scenery and eat my animal crackers.

View from the top of the hill and the dried up lake, if you can call it that.

That’s me at the top of the hill enjoying my animal crackers. With the prayer flags behind me.

That’s Yuli biking far in the distance. It was a fun day biking to new places.

The famous Ganden Sumtseling Monastery. We biked past it on the way to the lake.

We took a lot of photos of the sunset while eating snacks and drinking water. Most of my snacks consisted of animal crackers. One thing I learned on my travels is that I can find animal crackers in almost any part of the world. They are cheap and usually just as tasty in all places. This looked like an end to a great day, a lot better than I expected. Little did I realize that it was far from over.

Part 3, The Night Before Christmas

It was a long uphill battle getting back to the city but we made it to the hostel just before nightfall. At the hostel I took a shower and when I came out, our Naxi and Korean hosts made a Christmas dinner for us! They said that on Christmas all the food and drinks are a gift to us and no payment will be accepted. We thanked them and started our meal. The dinner was Korean style, with a grill to cook the food on! The host taught us how to eat the food Korean style and properly wrap up the meat in a vegetable leaf. The Korean host’s mother sent him kimchi from Korea and he let us eat it too. This was my first fresh kimchi and homemade at that.

It was a fun night filled with drinks, food, laughter and great company. One of the best parts was that we had an endless supply of local beer. I literally lost count of how many empty bottles we had; there was just a big pile next to the table. At some point during our meal the host’s wife’s friends joined us to celebrate and what seemed like, evaluate her new husband. They had a separate table and enjoyed the festivities at a different part of the room while we ate our Korean delicacies. The Korean host did not speak the Naxi language, so his daughter was translating what the women were saying about him. Mostly praises and good things, filled with laughter and occasional glances.

Family at the hostel that gave us such a warm welcome, food and company. Thank you!

That’s just me, playing around. No disrespect to the animal.

After the wife’s friends left, I thought the night was coming to an end. However, we had two Australians and an American come in to the hostel and join us at the table. The beer kept flowing, the food kept coming and the night continued until the sunrise. The following day I slept in late and spent my time outside on the porch while writing in my journal, eating snacks and just being lazy. Who knew that I would have such a wonderful Christmas so far away from home.

Thank you,
Aleksey