Searching for Shangri La

By Ron Emmons

Searching for Shangri La is a compilation of 12 quirky stories by Ron Emmons, who has written travel guides for National Geographic, Frommer’s and Rough Guides. Kicking off the collection, ‘No Place Like Home’ recounts the uneasy feelings of a traveller returning to his homeland only to find the place changed beyond recognition. Visits to places like Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi and the Buddha’s birthplace in Nepal trigger thought-provoking reflections on the human condition. Other topics such as getting lost in China, undergoing acupuncture treatment and a personal history of sweeping leaves reveal the author’s wry humour, while the title story is likely to get readers packing their bags in preparation for their own search for Shangri La.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Emmons
• Release date: Aug 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310307843

Ron Emmons

Ron Emmons is a British travel writer and photographer based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He writes and updates guidebooks for publishers such as National Geographic, Frommer’s, Rough Guides and DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, as well as writing and photographing travel features for international newspapers and magazines. Ron also provides content for prominent travel websites like frommers.com and the Google Cultural Institute.

Book preview

Searching for Shangri La

Copyright © 2014 by Ron Emmons

Searching for Shangri-La

Table of Contents

1 No Place Like Home

2 London Bridge Revisited

3 Lost in the Middle Kingdom

4 Mesmerized by Mao

5 A Visit to Uncle Ho

6 Slow Boat to the Golden City

7 Getting Needled

8 Scarecrows

9 Down the Siddharta Highway

10 The Rains Retreat

11 Sweeping Meditation

12 Searching for Shangri-La

Searching for Shangri La

Preface

Much of the writing I’m required to do as a freelance writer, particularly for guide books, is very formulaic—hotel listings, restaurant reviews and descriptions of tourist attractions. As an antidote to this restricted form of writing, I occasionally write short memoirs or travelogues to capture special moments or to ponder recurrent themes in my path through life.

This is the kind of writing I like best, when words come tumbling out in an attempt to sketch a unique scene. Unfortunately it’s not the kind of writing that is in great demand by newspapers and magazines as it’s too personal. Still, some of these pieces have been published before, most notably London Bridge Revisited and The Rains Retreat, both of which appeared under different titles in Hemispheres (United inflight) magazine.

Though these stories may have little in common apart from a fascination with exotic places and cultures, I have chosen the final tale as the title story, since it seems to me that most people are looking either for a better life or for a better place to live it, and I hope readers may find some resonance in my search for Shangri La.

Introduced by James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon, Shangri La was a remote monastery in Tibet where the inhabitants lived secure, contented and fulfilling lives. These days few know the name of the book or the author, but perhaps due to a lack of security, contentment and fulfilment in the modern world, the search for somewhere even approximating Shangri La has become something of a global obsession.

As an indication of the popularity of the concept, there is now a hotel chain called Shangri La with properties worldwide, and there’s also a town in Yunnan Province, China, formerly known as Zhongdian, that has been renamed Shangri La. If that’s not enough, you can even buy a guide book to the places that might have inspired the novel, published by Bradt. And while we all know Shangri La doesn’t exist in reality, that doesn’t stop some of us from exploring remote corners of this planet in the hope of stumbling on that special place where everything feels just right.

Ron Emmons Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2014.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

A traditional English pub is difficult to find these days; this is the Wild Duck Inn at Ewen.

The flight was more than half over. Outside the window a slow dawn was gaining on us; clouds, looking like a snow-covered field of mole burrows, stretched from a few hundred feet below the plane out to a peach-infused horizon. Inside, most people were asleep, having had their fill of inflight food and entertainment. The screen showed our flight path and position—somewhere over Uzbekistan, I believe, en route from Bangkok to London.

I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. It needs to be busy both before and after a flight, dealing with officials, time warps and culture shock, so once aboard I like to give it free rein. Perhaps sensing our destination hurtling closer, it now began to anticipate what surprises might be in store for me in England. It had been a long time, you see, since I had been home, having spent most of the last three decades living and working abroad. I live in Chiang Mai these days, but as the dazzling temples and misty hillsides of Northern Thailand once worked their magic on me, so now the thought of strolling through meadows and spending evenings in cozy country pubs was irresistibly exotic.

The weather looked reassuringly familiar as the plane descended through a thick blanket of cloud to touch down at Heathrow, and the ground staff, shrouded in shiny anoraks, squinted through the constant drizzle as they waved our plane into position. I smiled as I remembered that the English climate was a great part of my motive to get away in the first place, and gathered up my things ready to set foot on native soil.

Having negotiated the maze of corridors which took me through immigration and customs, I emerged before an expectant crowd who were all obviously waiting for someone else, judging by the searching looks trained over my shoulder. Among the crowd stood two men in clothes I knew well, the uniforms of British policemen. The automatic weapons they held snuggled to their chests, however, were something new to me. Fortunately, they were not waiting for me either, so I dragged my bags to the bank kiosk in order to arm myself with some pounds sterling.

The wad of money in my hand appeared considerable—a recent devaluation of the pound worked in my favour and I looked forward to a few carefree weeks living it up. First, however, I had to get used to the notes and coins, which had all changed since my last visit. Something strange here; had I grown bigger, or had the currency shrunk? Tiny ten and five pence coins rattled in my hand, while the notes seemed as small as Monopoly money. The comparison depressed me—I never was much good at that game.

Feeling like a stranger in my native land, I headed for the comfort of the family home in Maidenhead, where we hugged warmly then settled down with a cup of tea around the telly. This was a moment I had long awaited. After years of struggling in vain to understand Thai soap operas, the themes of which all seem to hinge on infidelity with lashings of tears thrown in, I would finally get to see a thought-provoking documentary or drama on the dear old BBC.