Dakpa Kelden, the founder of Arro Khampa Shangri-La; Arro Khampa Lijiang; and Arro Khampa Lhasa, is a legendary Tibetan Khampa. Born in India, he spent seven years in a monastery as a devoted Buddhist monk during his formative years. He learned about his hometown of Shangri-La from bedtime stories told by his father Ladho, a muleteer on the Tea Horse Road. His father instilled in him dreams of returning to his beloved home of Shangri-La in Tibet with “its grasslands, the untouched snow mountains, and the roaming wild yaks.” 

In 1987, aged just 16, Dakpa Kelden returned to Shangri-La with his father. As the only 17-year-old in a class of seven-year-old first graders, he put all his energy and much good humor into learning the Chinese language quickly, thus adding to his multilingual skills in English, Tibetan, Hindi and various regional dialects.