You stand at the edge of the lake in Lijiang, watching a white stone bridge and pagoda roofs softly interrupt the majestic mountains. The water is still. As the summer breeze moves through the pines, the landscape invites you to forget yourself, offering a rare sanctuary where the world demands absolutely nothing of you. This is the valley explorer Joseph Rock once claimed as the original Shangri-La, the hidden paradise that inspired James Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizon.