From Chengdu to Shangrila

Today we flew from Chengdu to Shangrila in Yunnan. Actually the town goes by a bunch of names; Zhongdian, Gyelthang, and was renamed Shangrila after the village in the James Hilton novel in an attempt to draw more tourists.  Our flight wasn't until 1945 so we had some time to kill. The hotel recommended we walk over to another mall (of course a mall) a few blocks away to shop and have lunch. We found another example of semiderelict infrastructure. It looks like the mall opened with good intentions a handful of years ago but was quickly passed up by bigger, fancier malls in the area. It was 4 stories and I think all of the 2nd floor and big chunks of the other floors were being renovated. Some shops looked like they were still in business but were locked up. Others were open but with no customers. We found a few restaurants and a tea shop that were open and had some fried food that was sort of western and some Taiwan style tea. Then we went up to the 4th floor which was mostly empty except for gym and a movie theater.  We ended up going to see a movie called "Dying to Survive"  All we knew about it was that it was in Chinese. I fully expected to be lost. Turns out it was released a few weeks ago and has had the most successful opening in Chinese history. Something like $200,000,000.00 in the first weekend and its being prepped for overseas release so it had English subtitles. Big win for me. It is based on a true story about a man with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia who could not afford  Gleevec in China as it wasn't covered by national health insurance. So, he began smuggling a copy cat drug in from India at one tenth the price. Before being caught he ended up smuggling in meds for something like 1000 CML patients who would otherwise have died. Movie was a lot like "Dallas Buyers Club" It was a great movie and if it does get released overseas you should see it.

Flight to Shangrila was about 90 minutes and then a short van ride to our hotel. You could immediately tell we were in a different part of China. We weren't in Tibet but Shangrila is a mostly Tibetan town. Tibetan script on all the signs. Tibetan architecture and temples. Even the people look and dress quite different from Han China.