Nine hours north of Zhongdian across some permanently snowy ranges, and only 80km from Tibet by road, DEQIN has traditionally been one of Yunnan's remotest corners. Recently, however, the region was seriously "identified" by the provincial government as Shangri-la , the fabled setting for James Hilton's classic tale Lost Horizon - an interesting claim considering Lost Horizon is fiction. At any rate, tourism funds have not been slow in coming, and April 1999 saw the completion of Deqin's airport , providing a direct link to Kunming. Hype aside, Deqin is a Tibetan town in the Lancang River (Mekong) valley, with a couple of temples; the main sight in the area is 30km west at Meilu Xue Shan , Yunnan's 6740-metre apex whose dwindling forests are home to the highly endangered Yunnan Golden Monkey . Getting to the mountain is not easy, involving jeep rental - check with information outlets in Zhongdian before heading up here.

The route northwest to the Tibetan border is theoretically simpler - this is the main Yunnan-Tibet highway after all - but the PSB will have to approve your presence before any vehicle will have you on board. If you make it, the road follows the dramatic upper reaches of the Lancang River to Markam, and then turns west towards Lhasa.