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ANY reason is a good reason to visit Southwest China's Yunnan Province, an exotic land that can fill you with wonder and offer many delightful surprises.

The province's south fringes the Laos and Myanmar borders, and the northwest shares the ethnic culture of Tibet, where there are dozens of tiny villages and temples rarely visited by tourists.

Absorbing the diverse landscapes can mean some bumpy journeys and enduring considerable distances between key sites.

However, a four-day trip from Lijiang to Shangri-la acquainted me with the diverse aspects of the province and afforded some real relaxation time.

Lijiang is the ancient capital of the Naxi kingdom on the Northwestern Yunnan Plateau. The city's maze of cobbled streets, old wooden bridges and gushing canals makes it one of the most visited sites in Yunnan.

Its popularity has grown fast in the past decade, and many Naxi stalls have made way for souvenir stores, seedy bars, cafes and guesthouses.

The place does attract a lot of tourists but it still manages to retain its charm thanks to its main attractions - the 800-year-old ancient town of Dayan and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Undoubtedly, the old town is the reason people come to Lijiang. With a maze of lanes that twist and turn, I was lost for the most part. But when the sun went down, I climbed up the stairs to one of the tea houses on the top of the hill, just to get an impressive view of the never-ending blue skies, dramatic mountain terrain and the lively old town.

At this moment, I realized why throngs of artists and writers came here to create their works and live a unique lifestyle. They say this place is "inspirational." Lijiang also has a pleasant climate, with year-round temperatures about 17 degrees Celsius.

After a one-night stay at Lijiang, I took a five-hour road trip from the capital of Naxi to the legendary paradise of Shangri-la. Shangri-la's stunning natural beauty came at the price of a long journey at high altitudes, along rutted mountain roads. But its remote location allows the secluded hideaway to maintain its pristine beauty.

Seeing the town's potential to follow in the footsteps of Lijiang and Dali, officials changed the name of Zhongdian County to Shangri-la County, after the location of British writer James Hilton's fictional Shangri-La, described in his 1933 novel "Lost Horizon."

Principally a Tibetan town, Shangri-la is last stop in Yunnan and the main reason to come here is to get a taste of Tibet if you don't make it to the real thing. The best time to come is around the start of June, when the colors of all seasons converge, and you can see the highland flora and fauna.

Soft-adventure is the natural way of exploring this mystical land, especially via trekking and horse riding.

What better way to experience the local lifestyle than on horseback. Our five-hour horse-riding Shangri-la cultural tour meandered through the picturesque villages and undulating pastures, allowing me to get in among nature, observe women tending the fields and charmingly muddied children play in their village courtyards, and to come face-to-face with yaks, horses, sheep and pigs roaming freely on the meadows.

Shangri-la is on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, and contains communities of ethnic Tibetans who have sustained their pastoral way of life for hundreds of years.

I was invited to visit Tibetan farmhouses, and sample homemade yak butter tea and slices of local cheese. The villagers taught me to enjoy their yak butter tea with barley powder, so the stomach is lined with enough fat to last through the chilly season.

The journey continued through an ancient pine forest to the 800-year-old Ringha Da Bao Si Monastery, a small but historically significant working temple on top of a scared hill. The culture tour provided me, as a first-time tourist, fascinating insights into Tibetan life and its many unique traditions and customs.

There is no shortage of guesthouses in Lijiang and Shangri-la where the majority of budget and domestic travelers choose to stay. But for the three nights' stay in Yunnan, my choice was the Banyan Tree resorts, which have already drawn a fresh international audience from discerning travelers. Banyan Tree Lijiang is a unique attempt to restate the local Naxi style in a contemporary, yet sensitive, manner. Each of the 55 Naxi-inspired villas are oriented Northeast, with inspirational views of the towering snow-capped peaks of the 5,600 meter Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

In Shangri-la, I lodged at Banyan Tree Ringha. Amid a Tibetan-style atmosphere of meditative Buddhist temples, prayer flags and gorgeous mountain views, the resort - which is 3,200 meters above sea level - is so in tune with its environment that it is impossible to tell where the traditional village ends and the hotel begins.

Source: Shanghai Daily