Day 10: Shangri-la, Tuesday 30th September 2025
Songzanlin Lamasary, Shangri-la
16°, fine, partly cloudy, showers
NZ$1 = Y4
Y1=NZ$0.25
Up at 8:00am, and down for breakfast at the table in the lobby at 8:30am. This morning we had a collection of small dishes, many of which we didn’t know what they were, but amongst them there were egg, sweet potato, rice / water dish, yaks milk, corn etc. all nicely presented in a little box.
Back to the room, got ready and out at 9am. We got a Didi (Y17) to Songzanlin Monastery entry at the north end of town, and arrived at 9:20am. Walked from the carpark to the Ticket Hall building and bought tickets ( Y55 for entry to monastery + Y20 for bus return from the ticket hall to the monastery itself, per person ). Yet another story of the Chinese ethos; the sign on the counter said that a package for entry, bus and an audio tour was Y95. To make life simple I pointed to this sign when we got to the cashier and instead of just taking our money and handing our tickets over the cashier said ( in pretty good English ) the audio tour was not available in English so we should get the ticket/bus combo for Y75 ea. It is little things like that which stay with you on a trip.
We got onto the bus outside the ticket hall at 9:30am and off up the hill, over a small ridge and arrived at the monastery gates at 9:40am. I will refer to the complex as a monastery but it is also known as a lamasery ( place where Lama’s are trained ) and also note that the monastery is know as Songzanlin in Chinese but it is also called Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery.
We took some photos on a convenient viewing platform then into the monastery itself complex itself.
We walked up the stairs ( slowly at 3300m above sea level now ) to the Main Square then into and around the temple buildings. We went through 5 separate temples, all were still in use with monks praying and also many local tourists leaving donations, praying, lighting candles and incense etc. None of the temples allowed photos inside, and it would have ruined the honesty of the place if it was just a photography spot not a real place of worship. We walked around the courtyards around the temples and then headed back down and out at 10:45am. Overall a very impressive complex, with not too many tourists, but too many instgrammers / selfie takers.
Back onto the next bus that arrived, then down through the ticket hall and out onto the streets at 11am. Looked briefly for a coffee spot then called a Didi ( Y13) back to the hotel. On the way back we passed through the actual working city of Shangri-la with multi storey buildings, offices etc. We headed to a neighbouring hotel that had a coffee and cake shop, got 2 coffees and a small piece of cheese cake for Y96(!) and sat and relaxed at 11:30am.
We walked to main square and got tickets for the Guishan Park Temples ( tickets were free but we had to register for them in WeChat , with no English to help ( we used the translation app on 1 phone to take a photo of the screen on the other phone as we went through the registering process )). We walked up the many steps to the top at 12:15pm, walked around the 2 main temples ( we didn’t go in ) and the largest prayer wheel in the world (?!) . Back down at 12:40pm
We walked around the old streets north of the temple hill, bought a small model of a Stupa (Y36 ) and small pottery cup/vase ( Y18 ) from a gift shop and then walked back to hotel, via the supermarket for snacks, at 1:40pm. Time for a rest.
Headed out for tea at 6pm, walked to the streets north of the temple hill again and went to Olive Bistro upstairs with a view over the streets below ( we had Sweet & Sour chicken, bao dumplings and twice fried potatoes, and 2 mango juices, for Y177. ) It started to rain heavily during dinner but eased off by the time we left.
Walked back to hotel at 8:30pm.
Zoomable Map ( pin is located roughly on our hotel location )