With the green gold now on horseback, the caravan will head north and climb over twenty mountain chains and cross four mighty rivers, including the Yangtze and Mekong. They make stopovers in lonely villages that hang from spectacular mountainsides in these lost parts of China. Often cut off from the rest of the world for as much as six months in the year, the villagers have developed remarkable skills to produce for themselves everything they need for their survival. For them, a crossing caravan is a welcome opportunity to reconnect to the world. Nature is harsh and savage, yet so beautiful and spectacular, that a universal spirituality has nested itself in the hearts of the men and women of these lost valleys and mountains. Buddhism is omnipresent: temples, stone prayers and other places of worship are everywhere. When our horse drivers leave these green parts of Shangri-La to confront the endless Bandga grassland in majestic altitudes, we understand that we are about to enter another completely different world.

Originally released by Film Ideas, 2013. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on March 15, 2019.

Spring Harvest (2:20); --Dali, China (5:08); -- Jizu Mountain (2:53); -- Traditional Union (7:34); -- Caravanning (3:15); -- River Crossings (5:50); -- Tengchong, Yunnan Province (4:55); -- Retired Horse Driver (2:36); -- Zhongdian City (2:39); -- Shangri-la Highlands (4:00); -- Salt Wells (5:44); -- Leaving Shangri-la Region (3:13); -- Credits: In The Heart Of Shagri-La (0:51); .