The World

For today’s Geo Quiz, we’re looking for the Shangrila Express.

Shangrila was a fictional setting in a popular novel of the 1930’s called Lost Horizon.

Tibetan Buddhists say Shangrila traces back to a mystical kingdom, that’s also called Shambhala.

Nowadays Shangrila has come to mean an earthly paradise, a permanently happy place, a place isolated from the outside world.

The name Shangrila pops up in a lot of places. The presidential retreat Camp David? FDR originally named it Shangrila.

Shangrila is also the name of a region on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

But we’re looking for the Shangrila Express. Do you know where it is?

For today’s Geo Quiz we were looking for the Shangrila Express. Well, there are at least two answers.

First, there’s the new railway to Tibet.

In 2006, China nicknamed its Beijing to Lhasa railway the Shangrila Express.

But we’re looking for another Shangrila Express. This one is a food cart.

You’ll find it at lunchtime outside a train station in Brooklyn’s Jackson Square.

We have an audio postcard of the street vendor behind this Shangrila Express:

That was Namgyal Gompa of Brooklyn’s Shangrila Express.

Our audio postcard was produced by Tsering Yangzom

Invest in independent global news

The World is an independent newsroom. We’re not funded by billionaires; instead, we rely on readers and listeners like you. As a listener, you’re a crucial part of our team and our global community. Your support is vital to running our nonprofit newsroom, and we can’t do this work without you. Will you support The World with a gift today? Donations made between now and Dec. 31 will be matched 1:1. Thanks for investing in our work!