after this weekend, I don't think anything else in China is worth mentioning. Shangri-La is amazing. I want to live there, and I'm the last person on earth who should live in China.

we drove up into the foothills of the Himalayas, to the border of Tibet where that beautiful place exists. It's beautifully desolate, cold and the color of dead grass. Yaks graze everywhere and big racks for drying wheat surround traditional Tibetan wooden houses.

our point person in Shangri-La, or Zhongdian in Mandarin, was a gregarious Tibetan man named Dakpa. He used to be a monk when he was younger and exiled to India, and runs a Tibetan culture NGO (and a really good Indian restaurant... he's pretty much Mr. Zhongdian) and knows everybody and everything worth knowing. He also looks like a Tibetan Viggo Mortensen, case in point that Tibetans are pretty much the most attractive race on this planet.

Tibet is also an extremely musical culture, as it turns out. Beside Dakpa's songs of welcome, we spent our first dinner in Zhongdian exchanging songs with the table next to us, a boisterous group of Tibetan reporters. Then Dakpa took us to a bar and we sang traditional Tibetan songs until we were invited by another Tibetan man to celebrate at his restaurant with more songs and dance. Alison and I sang a very shoddy rendition of Hava Nagila. The night ended with a drunk, belligerent Tibetan man, who believed he had been promised the next song, climbing onstage and ripping the microphone out of Joe's hand, then throwing a full bottle of Dali at Dakpa's head.

we had been warned that when Tibetans get mad, they don't like to use their words.

the next when Courtney and I found ourselves in an African drum circle with Japanese hippies and a Belgian innkeeper. The night after that, by chance we ended up with the same hippies at a different cafe, drinking yak butter tea and dancing with Tibetan locals. Everyone here is so friendly and warm. It's hard to even bargain with a shopkeeper without ending up with an invitation to dinner that night with their family.

we visited a lamasery and received blessings from the living Buddha. We visited an orphanage and played duck duck goose with Tibetan children (one child was confused and instead played goose goose duck). We went to a tiny temple in the countryside, where our companions were a friendly goat and some roosters. We went to a mountain and bathed in hot springs in our underwear.

I was never really into Tibet at home, but now I'm enthralled. I'm thinking of coming back here in a couple of weeks, Dakpa has already introduced me to a family I could live with. Hiking in the daytime, Tibetan music at night.