Pakistan, officially the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most
populous country, with a population of almost 227 million, and has the world's
second-largest Muslim population. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area,
spanning 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). It has a
1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in
the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran
to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from
Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a
maritime border with Oman.
Shangrila Lake also known as Lower
Kachura Lake is a lake located near the city of Skardu in Gilgit−Baltistan,
Pakistan. Situated at a height of 2,500 metres (8,200 ft).
Shangrila was named after Shangri-La,
an idyllic Himalayan paradise described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by
British writer James Hilton. In the novel, Hilton narrates a tale in which the
surviving passengers of an early-1920s airplane crash encounter a group of
Buddhist monks from a nearby temple, who answer the passengers' call for help
and take them to a lamasery filled with a variety of fruits and flowers; the
monks claim to be hundreds of years old, but appear youthful in their
appearance. The seemingly earthly paradise is referred to as Shangri-La, a
Tibetan-language word meaning "heaven on Earth".
Given the description of Shangri-La
(a Tibetan word for “Heaven on Earth,”) one might not immediately think of
troubled Pakistan as the proposed location of earthly paradise. It is
undisputed that Hilton visited the Northern valleys of Pakistan a couple of
years before publishing his book. Nevertheless, the exact location remains
unknown, and one can only speculate which place in the Greater Himalayan Region
was the main inspiration for his depiction.
In an attempt to fuel tourism to
Pakistan, the Skardu Valley was promoted as the “true” locale that served as
the inspirational source for Hilton. In 1983, the Shangri-La Resort (no
relation to the chain of luxury hotels of the same name) was opened at the
Lower Kachura Lake, which was then given the moniker Shangri-La Lake.
As a result of the continued volatile
political situation in Pakistan, the anticipated influx of tourists never came.
Thus, today, the resort sits rather forlorn in the undoubtedly beautiful
valley. The resort comprises of two buildings of mock-Chinese architecture, as
well as an airplane, which once served as a restaurant (but is only
sporadically open today). The airplane is a reference to Hilton’s depiction of
a plane that crash-landed at Shangri-La – makes the unusual sight of Far East
Asian architecture in Pakistan even stranger.
Unsurprisingly, the Skardu Valley is
not the only place in the greater region which claims to be the “real” Shangri-La.
Most of these places are located in the People’s Republic of China. In 2001,
Zhongdian County in Yunnan, was even officially renamed Shangri-La County.
Additionally, historians regularly claim that certain places in Nepal, Bhutan
and India might have been the true inspirational source for Hilton.
Sources :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Kachura_Lake
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/shangri-la-lake
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/shangri-la-lake
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