Destination: Shaxi, Yunnan
When Songzi Guanyin answered his wife's prayer, Chris Barclay gave thanks by restoring a crumbling temple dedicated to the fertility goddess in 'Shangri-la'.
There are a few areas in Yunnan province that call themselves "the real Shangri-la" in an attempt to lure Western tourists. But the place that is perhaps most like James Hilton's mythical valley has shown little interest in rebranding itself - no doubt because its story is already so compelling.
Shaxi is a sun-soaked valley high in the Himalayan foothills of northwest Yunnan whose welcoming Bai people, like those in Hilton's Lost Horizon, work verdant fields until the end of their long lives. Surrounded by mountains halfway between the tourist cities of Lijiang and Dali, Shaxi's inaccessibility has kept away the tour groups - but a new highway will soon change that.
Before modern roads, Shaxi was an important stop on the Tea Horse trade route and in the valley remains its last intact market town. Predating the Silk Road, the Tea Horse caravans carried Tibetans, who traded horses and animal furs for tea, salt and medicines, through Yunnan into Myanmar.
Shaxi continues the tradition of a Friday market, where the Bai trade everything from household goods and farm tools with the Yi and Yao people of the surrounding mountains, who bring exotic mushrooms, wild rhododendron honey and meat.
The cobblestone footpaths, rammed earth courtyard houses and emerald fields give Shaxi a bucolic charm that requires no commercial gimmicks.