Tibetan Yunnan
As we headed to Shangri-La (Zhongdian), we entered Tibetan territory. Not the province of Tibet, mind you; we stayed on the Yunnan side of the border, but the corner of Yunnan that is inhabited primarily by ethnic Tibetans. Some of the food changed accordingly, although hotpot continued to be a mainstay (thankfully, as it also got considerably colder as we climbed in altitude).
Peter, Peter...

The closer you get to Tibet and the Himalayas, the harsher the climate, for obvious reasons. There are huge Tibetan plateaus 2000m up, with fields of flowers, barley, and vegetables, but compared to the rest of Yunnan, this area is much more limited in diversity of produce and availability of different kinds of meat. More on the latter below, but first, the vegetables. I ate *incredible* vegetarian dishes in this region. Despite it being mid-June, it was already cold -- quite cold -- at night and in the mornings, and pumpkin was in season. I had great steamed pumpkin (right) ... something I am definitely going to try to re-create come fall. There were also good corn-and-peas dishes, wild mountain mushrooms, white radish soup, and various leafy green vegetables. I would try to elaborate on how they were prepared, but it's really the freshness that makes all the difference.
Interesting fruit

This was one of the fruits I had never seen before. There's no sense of scale to be had in the photo, so you might think they're just apples, but they're quite a bit smaller than the average apple. Larger than a crab apple (and not as hard), but smaller than a plum... anyone know what they are? I don't.
Preserved pork and potatoes

Potato chips, actually, but then I would have lost the alliteration. The pork was fried in this instance, which gave it a little bit of a crispy edge, and made it maybe a touch more palatable to me... but the homemade chips were still better.
As I mentioned, meat availability is season-dependent up here, so preserved pork is all the rage. I'm not entirely clear on how this is done, but essentially, you can have a large pig-shaped jerky sitting around for months. Only...the jerky is really fatty and soft. Like jelly. It's a little weird -- I couldn't tell whether I was just eating a big mouthful of fat, or whether they had done something to the meat to transform its texture. On the whole, I can't say I liked it that much, but it was definitely new and interesting. In any case, this preserved pork gets cooked in a number of ways, such as in breaded slices (left in the pic below), stewed, and stir fried. I didn't find any one method to produce a particularly better morsel than any other.
Pork and pancakes

Next to the pork in the photo is a plate of corn pancakes. Actually, they're almost like creamed-corn pancakes, still pretty moist inside. And yes, they do taste a lot like creamed corn -- a bit sweet, and neatly packaged by the outer pancake layer. Pretty good, I thought, though I'm not sure I'd want them on a regular basis.
Back to the hotpot
I mentioned that the ingredients for hotpot changed slightly as we got further north. By the time we reached Lijiang, we had a new addition to go with the assorted vegetables, noodles, bean thread (glass noodle), and tofu: yak meat. Yaks are increasingly plentiful as you move into the mountain ranges, and are frequently crossed with cows to produce mutt offspring that are good for either labor (the males) or milk (females). I also tried the traditional yak-butter tea, which in my opinion is far too thick to be considered tea (and smells a little funny), and not nearly as good as the somewhat-traditional ginger tea also served in the region; and we were served yak in non-hotpot dishes as well, but always sliced -- I don't know whether a yak steak would be unheard of. There isn't much to say about the yak except that it looks like beef, but a bit deeper red in raw form; about the same when cooked (perhaps a bit more marbled?). I thought it was pretty tasty, but it cooks quite quickly, so you need an attentive hand to make sure it isn't overdone. As with the peacock/chicken, I might be able to tell the difference from good beef in a blind taste test, but I wouldn't guarantee it.