ShangriLa China: Guishan Park and The World’s Second Largest Prayer Wheel

I arrived in Shangri-La by bus from Lijiang.  The ride cost 68 RMB ($10.97 USD),  took about four hours, and was full of beautiful scenery.

lijiang to shangrila

I knew I wanted to buy my ticket for Baishui Terraces tomorrow as seating is limited.  Or so I thought, but more on that in my next post.

After buying my ticket, I went outside and as is standard China, any Westerner who emerges from a bus station, train station or airport, must be greeted by every taxi driver who ever lived.   I honestly do not find this as over the top frustrating as I did last year.  It is still annoying as all hell, but I have come to accept that this is China.

I pick a driver and off to my hotel we go.  The ride cost me 20 RMB which = $3.23 USD

I am staying at N’s Kitchen and Hostel.  I walk in and am greeted with “Jennifer?” because that is a perk of being a Westerner in China.  You get five star diamond service by being greeted with by name whenever you walk into a hotel.

I am taken to my room, followed by the hostel dog.  It turns out there were two of them, the tiny one was so adorable I wanted to steal her so badly.

ns kitchen hostel dogs

Shangri-La was a victim of a fire back in January 2014 that completely destroyed the old town.  The view from my window showed construction going on to rebuild.  I could constantly hear it as well.  It was a very noisy place.  The noise did not bother me but I find that sometimes when you visit a place (Istanbul comes to mind) and you hear the background noise it is a bit surprising as you are in a real life movie scene complete with background music.

Room view:

room view N's Kitchen and Hostel

It was around 4:00 pm when I arrived and I was told the internet would be on in half an hour.  I internally groaned thinking that this meant my internet would be incredibly sporadic and slow but it turns out I had the best internet speed here so far in the trip.

As dusk hit, I walked over to Guishan Park.  This was about a five minute walk from my hostel.  At night the locals dance from 7:00 to 9:00.  It was really cool to watch.

Guishan temple dusk Even cooler was up above lives the Golden Temple and the world’s second largest prayer wheel.  A lot of people think this is the largest prayer wheel in the world.  That is because up until 2010, it was.  Then a bigger one was built in Guide County in Qinghai, China.

prayer flags outside prayer wheel

People spinning the large prayer wheel.locals spinning prayer wheel shangrila china

Prayer flags everywhere:Golden Temple Shangrila China

View of Shangri-La from the top:

Prayer Flags over Shangrila ChinaDown below, the locals dance nightly in the square:

I would love to come back here.  First with a wide zoom lens to capture the enormity of the prayer wheel.  Secondly, I have an overland trip planned out on paper to Meili Snow Mountain then to Yubeng.  From here, I would then go onto Chengdu for the third time in my life and hope that the third times works to get myself to Emeishan.

One day…

6 thoughts on “ShangriLa China: Guishan Park and The World’s Second Largest Prayer Wheel

  1. KC

    Wow, I’m so glad I stumbled upon your blog. Great photos! Do you find it challenging traveling solo as a woman to less advanced parts of the world?
    -KC

    Reply
    1. jennifer Post author

      Thanks!

      The only place I have traveled that was less advanced was China so I cannot speak about the majority of them. But for China, I never felt anything because of my gender. It was challenging for a million other reasons, but thankfully, being female was not one of them. I don’t think I would have survived having one more challenge to deal with.

      Reply

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