The road would continue north skirting past Sichuan before entering Tibet and on to Lhasa. My destination however was much closer. Heading past increasing numbers of villages; white chortens surrounded by prayer flags rose alongside the highway. Rounding a bend there lay Zhondian. We had arrived safely at what for me would be "Shangri-la" for several days.

Tourism had not then taken off - airport and expressway connections have since opened up the area. In 1995 accommodation was limited. I booked into the surprisingly good Tibet Hotel offering great food with a menu in English! Zhongdian was increasingly expanding with low-rise concrete buildings; my hotel bordered the older town. Sadly around half of this unique neighborhood was destroyed by fire on January 11, 2014. Flames spread rapidly due to extensive use of wood within traditional construction. In ’95 large logs from local forests were piled up for future building work, or maybe for fuel? It was interesting to watch new homes being built - side walls mainly composed of whitewashed adobe brick but facades were of highly ornate wood. Buildings were large, some with upper floor balconies. At street level space was used for storage or converted into "walk-in" shops offering a fairly limited range of simple produce such as drinks, noodles, biscuits, household supplies along with personal items such as soap and toothpaste.

For me, as I wandered around, Zhongdian was taking on the feel of a traveller’s dream, particularly around the semi-enclosed bustling central market. Hundreds of brass prayer lamps alongside circular mounds of yak butter sat on stalls along the sidewalk. Piles of unfamiliar varieties of mushrooms were there - apparently many were shipped overseas, particularly to Japan. Tibetan women wearing red or green headscarves pushed heavy black bicycles. Some carried children in back shawls.

It is important not to remember it through "rose-tinted spectacles". The town was still relatively isolated, it was just starting to open up. The older area, which was fascinating to wander through, felt like an interface between rural and semi-urban with cattle, pigs and dogs wandering around unpaved back streets. Like many older areas in China at that time, dwellings frequently had no running water. Even at the hotel I noticed my laundry being hand washed in a plastic basin. However it also felt like a place waiting to be discovered.

 

I could feel within me that the older area had the potential to become a "high-altitude Dali". Indeed combining Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian and much in between there was the making of excellent travel possibilities. Such towns were historically long connected. Known locally as Deqen, like other north Yunnan settlements, it was on the historic "Tea Horse Trail" where from the 6th century Pu’er tea was transported by packhorse from sub-tropical Simao up to Lhasa. Wandering around, looking at people in their heavy traditional clothes I would wonder how many could trace their ancestry back through the centuries. Older Zhongdian in '95 had the impression of a town where people never or rarely left.

 

The market area was a constant source of interest and photo opportunities. Just sitting watching life in all its forms could captivate me for hours. Scenes so far removed not just from more developed eastern coastal cities but also from Kunming, the provincial capital. I was fascinated with headgear - not just the colorful range of Tibetan, Yi, Naxi and Bai ladies styles but also the men with wide-brimmed almost cowboy-style - useful with the strong sun on the grasslands. One elderly man wearing a knee-length brown suede coat contentedly sat smoking a long-stem pipe. Next to him a lama from the nearby monastery appeared deep in thought. Tibetans appeared clearly in the majority around this bustling commercial area, although with so many different dialects and languages there was the continual mixture of quite incomprehensible sounds. With the number of people thronging through the tight spaces between stalls, photography was challenging, often having the camera ready to fire in the hope of successfully capturing images of this moment in time. Every corner presented reasons to stop, stare and wonder what the utensils were used for such as tall copper pots that seemed to have come from a bygone age. Were they for cooking? I had never seen the likes before. Then there were the meat cleavers simply laid out on the ground - something safety regulations back home in Scotland would forbid, yet there they were spread out in public view. I did feel Zhongdian was a safe place - indeed there certainly felt harmony amongst the various ethnic groups I met.