The American explorers
Ted Vaill and
Peter Klika visited the
Muli area of southern
Sichuan Province in 1999, and claimed that the Muli
monastery in this remote region was the model for Hilton's Shangri-La, which they thought Hilton learned about from articles on this area in several
National Geographic magazines in the late 1920s and early 1930s written by the Austrian-American explorer
Joseph Rock. Vaill completed a film based on their research,
Finding Shangri-La, which debuted at the
Cannes Film Festival in 2007. However, Michael McRae unearthed an obscure interview of Hilton from a
New York Times gossip column in which he reveals that his cultural inspiration for Shangri-La, if it is anywhere, is more than 250 km north of Muli on the route travelled by Huc and Gabet. On 2 December 2010,
OPB televised one of
Martin Yan's
Hidden China episodes, "Life in Shangri-La", in which Yan said that "Shangri-La" is the actual name of a
real town in the hilly and mountainous region in southwestern
Yunnan Province, frequented by both
Han and Tibetan locals. Martin Yan visited arts and craft shops and local farmers as they harvested crops, and sampled their cuisine. However, this town was not originally named Shangri-La, but was renamed so in 2001 to increase tourism. In the "Shangri-La" episode of the
BBC documentary series
In Search of Myths and Heroes, the television presenter and historian
Michael Wood suggested that the legendary Shangri-La might be the abandoned city of
Tsaparang, and that its two great temples were once home to the kings of
Guge in modern Tibet. The
Travel Channel in 2016 aired two episodes of
Expedition Unknown that followed host Josh Gates to
Lo Manthang, Nepal and its surrounding areas, including the
sky caves found there, in search of Shangri-La. His findings offer no proof that Shangri-La is or was real. == See also ==