It is supposed to be utopia, the most perfect place on earth, where the people live in peace and tolerance, but "Shangri-La" became a living hell for a couple of US tourists and their Chinese guide who became lost in its wilderness.

David Richard Hale and his wife Donna Louis Hale, were rescued by local people after they became lost for three days in the deep forests of southwest China's Yunnan Province last week.

In 1933, British writer James Hilton captivated the world with the mysterious land of "Shangri-La" in his novel "The Lost Horizon". It sparked rush of explorers from around the world to look for the snowy, mountainous, utopian land where people of different religions lived in concord.

China has named the place, where the adventure occurred, as Xianggelila (Chinese spelling for Shangri-La) County, under the administration of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to join a decades-long race among Himalayan countries to claim "Shangri-La" as its own.

The travel agency that organized the tour for the Hales was also named after Shangri-La.

The story begins on Sept. 15, when the pair arrived in Xianggelila County with a six-member tourist group for a three-daytrip to study plants and flowers. Their guide was Li Xuejian. The next morning, the guide brought his clients to a beautiful grassland.

Ms. Hale soon felt tired and was left behind. Later, Mr. Hale became anxious about the whereabouts of his wife. Mr. Hale and the guide tracked back to find Ms. Hale. They met and then tried to join the others. But unfortunately, the three got lost as they were lured into deep forest by the beauty of various plants.

In the evening, when the other members of the group arrived at the camp on the 4,470-meter Shika Snow Mountain, they did not see the guide and the American couple. At 10 p.m., they informed the local government of their disappearance.

Over 200 police officers, members of the Chinese People's Armed Police, and ordinary people soon launched a search around the mountain, braving low temperatures, around zero centigrade, oxygen deficiency and difficult terrain.

Finally, the trio were found by a 23-member armed police squad. It was impossible to tell how hard the officers had worked to bring the American couple out of the forest. The most difficult test was bringing the couple through a so-called "Death Valley".

The rescuers had to bind the Americans to their backs and move very carefully up and down. Mr. Hale weighed over 90 kilograms and Ms. Hale was more than 60 kilograms.

The three missing people were exhausted with hunger, cold and fatigue. Ms. Hale was in a coma. At 12:10 a.m., on Sept. 20, the Hales were sent to the First-Aid Center of Shangri-La County for treatment.

In the morning of the same day, when the armed police officers came to see them, the American couple were touched. They wrote down many thankful words for their rescuers.

On September 22, local government held a gathering at the armed police barracks to thank them for their assistance in maintaining a sound environment for local tourism.

On September 23, the couple were fully recovered and resumed their sightseeing in Shangri-La.
(Xinhua News Agency  September 27, 2003)