Shangri-La Botanical Gardens

Here I am, wearing my favorite hat at the Shangri-La Botanical Gardens in Orange, TX. I highly recommend a visit. 

Greetings from Orange, Texas! 

In my never-ending quest to bring you fabulous places to visit without needing to declare bankruptcy, I'm serving up the Shangri-La Botanical Gardens in Southeast Texas. 

The Gardens' name is a reference to the mythical utopia in Hilton's Lost Horizon. In Hilton's book, Shangri-La is actually a lost paradise administered by the monks of a lamasery where an old Brit goes to escape trouble brewing in the world outside. The name "Shangri-La," though, has come to a more general meaning, and is often used to refer to any lost-paradise-type spot.    

Lost is a feeling you can get here very easily. In my experience, it's never very crowded — the heat, humidity and mosquitoes being enough to keep most Southeast Texans inside. But if you can brave the weather (and you can, for such aching natural beauty), the sheer loneliness of the spot is enough to make you feel like you're one of the last human beings looking at a land nature has reclaimed. Some spots more than others. The swampy bird blind above is a good example. 

Another great example is this sunken boat I found.

                                  

Okay, I didn't actually find it. One of the garden's volunteers noticed my camera gear, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Want a picture of something cool?"

Of course I did.

He led me off the beaten path to an area in front of the water, where I could see what looked like a pile of sticks and debris jutting out from the water. It was a sunken houseboat, its weathered planks faded to a dull grey-brown, the victim of time and exposure. 

It was downright haunting.  

However, the gardens are vast, and the territory goes from haunting, like above (it looks like something from a good, old-fashioned Louisiana ghost tale) to an almost tropical-looking paradise. With a whopping 252 acres, I guess you have to change it up a little. 

A beautiful walkway stretching across calm, blue-green waters greets guests about midway through the gardens, offering the feeing of a rich island escape. I thought of Bali.   

The manicured section of gardens closer to the entrance feature a riot of colors. The landscaping is stunning, a real work of art in nature. The website boasts an incredible 30o species of plants living in the gardens.   

And if you just have to get out of the mosquitoes (they're pretty bad. Make sure to drown yourself in DEET before coming out here), you can wander into one of the greenhouses, which house yet more dynamic plants.   

Southeast Texas' Shangri-La also features a children's garden with some fantistical sculptures. My favorite was a bunch of trees covered in blue glass bottles. They don't make blue bottles like that, anymore, but I think they're beautiful. 

There are a few indoor attractions — a cafe and a gift shop among them — including an indoor exhibit for kids and a visitors center with a video explaining the history of the gardens. The video is, as these things go, rather dull. And really, why waste time sitting indoors when a world like this awaits you outside of it?

Oh, right.

Those pesky mosquitos.