Shangri-La, Where Yunnan Becomes Tibet

Shangri-La — plain Zhongdian until the county borrowed the name from James Hilton's novel in 2001 — sits at around 3,200 metres on the southeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, where Yunnan stops being subtropical and starts being Kham. The air is thin and startlingly clear, the light hard, and the town's rhythm is set by Songzanlin Monastery, a Gelugpa complex of whitewashed monk houses climbing to gilded roofs above a reed-fringed lake, home to several hundred monks and often called a little Potala.

The old town of Dukezong was gutted by fire in 2014 and has been rebuilt in timber; above it, on Guishan hill, turns what is claimed to be the world's largest prayer wheel, which takes a handful of people to move. Come at dusk and you may find neighbours circling the square in a guozhuang line dance. North of town, Napa Lake swells and shrinks with the seasons across grassland grazed by yaks and horses, and hosts wintering black-necked cranes. Pudacuo National Park protects the spruce forest, boardwalks and glassy water of Shudu and Bita lakes above 3,500 metres. South of the county town, the white limestone terraces of Baishuitai step down a hillside above Naxi hamlets, a sacred site of the Dongba religion.

The food turns Tibetan here: yak butter tea, roasted barley tsampa, matsutake mushrooms in the late-summer rush, hotpot washed down with highland barley wine. Take the altitude seriously on the first day. Shangri-La is the last stop on the Yunnan road north from Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge, and the gateway to Deqin and the Meili range beyond — the classic overland route through China's southwest.