Lower Kachura Lake, also known as Shangrila Lake, is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

located near the city of

Skardu Skardu (, Tibetan script: སྐར་མདོ, ) is a city located in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan in the disputed Kashmir region. The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kas ...

Gilgit-Baltistan Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative units of Pakistan, administrative territory and consists of the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has b ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. Situated at the height of , it has had an operational resort for tourists on its bank since 1983. Through the architectural work of the resort and the background Karakoram hills, the landscapes of the lake make it one of the attractive tourist destinations within the

northern Pakistan Northern Pakistan ( ) is a tourism region in northern and north-western parts of Pakistan, comprising the administrative units of Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly known as '' Northern Areas''), Azad Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad Capita ...

Shangrila Resort

Shangrila Resort Hotel was established in 1983 with the opening of the first resort hotel in

. The Shangrila Resort Hotel was founded by Aslam Khan Afridi, a Pakistani military officer who served as the first commander of the Northern Scouts of the

Pakistan Army The Pakistan Army (, ), commonly known as the Pak Army (), is the Land warfare, land service branch and the largest component of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The president of Pakistan is the Commander-in-chief, supreme commander of the army. The ...

. His son, Arif Aslam Khan is currently the chairman of the resort management. The resort is known for its restaurant that is built in the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

of an aircraft that had crashed nearby. The resort was named after ''

Shangri-La Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by the British author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently ...

'', an idyllic Himalayan paradise described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' written by the British novelist James Hilton. In the novel, Hilton narrates a tale in which the surviving passengers of an early–1920s airplane crash encounter a group of

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

monks from a nearby

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

, who answer the passengers' call for help and take them to a lamasery filled with a variety of fruits and flowers; the monks claim to be hundreds of years old, but appear youthful in their appearance. The seemingly earthly

paradise In religion and folklore, paradise is a place of everlasting happiness, delight, and bliss. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical, eschatological, or both, often contrasted with the miseries of human ...

is referred to as ''Shangri-La'', a Tibetan-language word meaning, "''heaven on Earth''". Shangrila Resorts

References

External links

Shangrila Resort Skardu
Lakes of Gilgit-Baltistan Resorts in Pakistan {{Gilgit-Baltistan Lake Stub