We're back... I told you we would be. We're even back at the same hostel, The Hump Across the Himalays, as we stayed the night we left Zhengzhou, some 11 days ago. Last night, we took an averagely comfortable but very smelly bus for 15 hours from Shangri-La - in China it's socially acceptable to chain-smoke on a sleeper bus. It's acceptable just about everywhere, actually.
Whether we could get the bus was touch-and-go because of the snow in Shangri-La. Our hostel, nice as it was, refused to provide a bus back into town in the morning for any of the (only) five guests leaving. Having to hitch, the first van we came across was stuck in a drift, we pushed it out (we rescued five vehicles during our stay) before the driver told us it wasn't heading into town. Great. Ten minutes later, we came across a tractor and trailer going our way. Success! Relative success, until the tractor got stuck on a mild incline, the wheels spinning, and we had to jump out and drag it uphill. I wish I had the photos to prove it, it was not a light tractor.
Speaking of photos, I'm uploading right now.