The (not-so) fabled land of Shangri-La is filled with mystical places. It is a land where bars beckon to you…”Come!,” they say.
Ok, so as my Asian adventure proved, there really is a city called “Shangri-La” and it isn’t quite so fabled at all! I can confidentally say this, as I enocuntered the true fabled Shangri-La (aka Bhutan). But the Shangri-La I currently speak of is the mountinous north of China’s Yunnan province, near the point where Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet meet.Funny tidbit…it used to be called Zhongdian, but was renamed Shangri-La as a tourist draw. And since “Shangri-La” is distinctly not a Chinese name, it is pronounced “Shang-guh-lee-la.”
There’s nothing terribly mystical about the place, but I do wonder if this bar owner thought so in coming up with this name. I mean where else than a mystical place could a bar actually beckon you?
Or perhaps it’s simply missing a comma in there. Like “Come, Bar!” Wait…is the owner of the bar tying to call it back as if it were a dog? “Here Bar! Come Bar!”