The lost horizon found

Part 1

Vithoon Pungprasert

The Nation

 Our 4,880-kilometre journey takes us from Dali to the source of the Mekong in Qinghai province. After a good start, we take a break in the area now called Shangri-La.

We began in southern Yunnan, just north of the spot in Xishuangbanna where in 1866 Captain Ernest Doudart de Lagree, leader of the French "Mad about Mekong" expedition, had died from a sudden illness.

 Lagree was replaced by his deputy, Francis Garnier, who led the expedition on to Dali. There the trip ended after two years.

 The French expedition has to be mentioned when it comes to exploring the source of the Mekong. The naval officers, geographers and botanists made their way from Saigon as far up the Mekong as they could manage.

 The explorers proceeded up the river in grand style, first in gunboats, then on barges, elephants, horses and palanquins, accompanied at various times by dozens of porters and armed escorts.

 The team's two-year, 5,392km journey took it through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and China, where it reached as far as Dali. Hoping to speed the colonisation of Indochina and neighbouring countries, the explorers found that the Mekong, with its ubiquitous rapids, was not an ideal communication route,

 In Shangri-La we came face to face with the Tibetan region's towering Meili Snow Mountain Range, which is sacred to the inhabitants.

 There are 13 mountains, each topping 6,000 metres. This was where a team of 13 Chinese and Japanese explorers disappeared in a snowstorm.

 Just the same, Shangri-La is an ideal place to stop over for a good time - it's said you're closer to heaven. Of course much of the locale's popularity has to do with the novel "The Lost Horizon". You'll want to come here if you've read it.

 In 1933, James Hilton, an English writer of modest repute, published a small novel about a sacred utopian kingdom hidden away in the Himalayas, in a place that strongly resembled Tibet.

 It was the story of a man named Hugh Conway and three companions whose plane crashed in a hermetic kingdom overseen by a Buddhist lamasery.

 The lamas exercised a benevolent and mystical rule over a society where people lived for 200 years, and gloriously, possessed modern plumbing!

 Hilton called the place he conjured up Shangri-La. The name entered the English language as a metaphor for a perfect place, and the notion captivated the imaginations of moviemakers.

 Among other appropriations, it now shares its name with one of Asia's finest hotel chains.

 James Hilton, whose other principal novel is the schoolboy classic "Goodbye, Mr Chips", was not much of a traveller, preferring instead to draw his inspiration from the pages of glossy magazines like National Geographic, which had become a rage in the 1930s.

 Shangri-La, it was widely speculated, must be in Zhongdian county, straddling Yunna and Sichuan provinces, and part of the Tibetan region.

 In 2001 the county was renamed Shangri-La as a gimmick to stimulate local tourism, the Chinese government insisting it was indeed the location of the kingdom unveiled in the novel.

 These days, visitors come to see the sacred mountains. I must admit they do turn heavenly at dawn and dusk.

 One of the reasons for me to be in Shangri-La is to meditate. The landscape calms my mind. I'm glad I'm able to meditate and turn the giant dharma wheel at a temple.

 Shangri-La is the gateway to the Mekong River, which is known as Lancang to the Chinese. It's where you can see three rivers flowing in parallel: the Lancang, the Salween (Nu in Chinese) bound for Burma, and the Yangtze.

 The TV series "Mekong the Untamed" premieres on April 6 at 10.15pm on Channel 9.