When I was a little boy, I read a book and a movie made in 1973 titled "The Lost Horizon by James Hilton" that leaves me with a burning desire to go venture into the unknown, a time travel, a dream into the Himalaya that brings you into another world. The descriptions from the book and the movie described Shangri-La as an ancient Tibetian legend of Shambala (Buddhist Pure Land), a fabulous kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as physical or geographic. All these points to the Himalaya Region of Southwest China (Yunnan, Kunming and Sichuan), Tibet, Bhutan, Himalayan India (Dharamsala, Lahaul, Spiti, Ladakh, Zanskar, Leh and Sikkim), Nepal and Pakistan.
These regions remain pretty inaccessible until very recent. With all the power struggle and military confrontation in Tibet and India, China finally opened its door to Tibet in the year 1985.Unknown to me, I finally set foot into what may be the Lost Horizon, the Shangri-La in 1987. Right into the heart of Tibet - Lhasa. This also ignite the desire to venture to the rest of the region in search of the legendary Shangri-La.
