Paradise Lost In Shangri-La

Officially named in 2001, this small town in China's Yunnan Province is struggling to cope with over 2 million visitors a year. It's becoming a "high altitude hell."

1 minute read

December 1, 2007, 9:00 AM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"Struggling to cope with over 2 million visitors a year, the town that claims to have inspired mythical accounts of heaven on earth is in danger of becoming a high-altitude hell, choked by tour buses and overwhelmed by outsiders. Even the man who claims to have first sown the seed of an idea that led to the town changing its name five years ago says he rues the day he voiced it."

..."This is not heaven on earth... This is a tourist trap."

Thursday, November 29, 2007 in The Christian Science Monitor

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