Lijiang is in the province of Yunnan. There’s this journey called the Yunnan Trail which is to travel from Kunming (the capital) to Shangri-La via Dali and Lijiang. I hope to do that one day. Shangri-La used to be known as Deqen, but they changed the name for tourism reasons. “Lost Horizon”, the best selling novel by James Hilton resonates to this day, even though Yunnan isn’t Tibet.
Shangri-La has also been used as the name for a Swiss/Chinese craft brewery that opened in 2009. Shangri-La Highland Craft Brewery has done a great job of permeating the non Lijiang Bar Cartel market. You can imagine how hard it was to resist a visit their brewery, which 3 hours north of Lijiang. Next time.
This is serious Craft with a range spanning from a stout through to a lager. All made with Tibetan barley.
At the other end of the Yunnan Beer spectrum is Dali. This is Yunnan’s VB/Toohey’s/XXXX. Every convenience store and restaurant sells it and/or has their walls plastered with Dali advertising. V8 is the go to, but hunt and you’ll find V6 and a very, very good white beer.
back of the ferry 