Introduction – Tibet journey
Tashi Dele! “Hello, Welcome!”. Our journey through Tibet had started. In the forgotten kingdom of Tibet, much has changed since China took control in 1950. Fast forward nearly 70 years and Tibet is still changing – very rapidly I might add. For the better? Well, that depends on your perspective in terms of how you perceive change.
We visited Tibet to enable us to trek up to Cho Oyu Advance Base Camp with a climbing expedition. Coupled with a visit to Shishapangma Base Camp (North side) plus Everest Base Camp (North).
This was always going to be a ‘trek’ with a difference. Firstly, given the vast distances we had to cover (some 1,400km/869mi), driving was always going to form a large chunk of our trip. As for trekking, well unfortunately this time around it had to play second fiddle. Getting up and over several 5,000m passes certainly helped with the new and improved roads, making for easy access to the interior all of which was a blessing.
The Tibetans are getting on with their lives the best way they can, though are very limited to the type of jobs they can apply for, type of vehicles they can own and are not allowed to travel outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). We must have encountered some 30 police or other check points along the way for locals and tourists alike. But hey, the Tibetans can still dance and have some fun as we discovered first hand in Lhasa.
Lhasa
Flying into Lhasa has a certain charm about it, even at 3,700m / 12139ft. Lhasa still maintains a vibrant culture and the food is great. Having a cup of tea at a local tea house with local Tibetans was a real bonus.
Potala Palace, rebuilt in the 17th century, was the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas from 1649 to 1959 and has been a museum since then. Now a world heritage site, its now a bit of a tourist trap. Most if not all of the historical artefacts have been moved back to Beijing for ‘restoration purposes’. Plus, many of the old rooms have been closed to visitors so you are only permitted to wander around inside as the authorities wish.
With hordes of tourists lining up to go in (and this wasn’t even peak season), we chose to walk around the outside as the local Tibetans do on a daily basis. We recommend this! Find where they are dancing and join in. And for good measure, go and exercise with them. You are guaranteed lots of laughs and enjoyment.
Shigatse
From Lhasa we drove to Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet. Here, we visited the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama. We were very lucky on the day we visited that the monks were celebrating the end of a prayer cycle. They paraded through the monastery grounds with a great fanfare of Tibetan ceremonial horns and crashing cymbals.
Mt Everest (Chomolungma) Base Camp – North Side (5,200m/17,060ft)
Having trekked to Mt Everest on the South side in Nepal, I have to say I was blown away when I saw Chomolungma from the North side. My first reaction was ‘she’s huge’! My second reaction was how beautiful she looked, even from some 19km away. Having had some friends climb her back in the spring season earlier in the year brought it all home. Being totally exposed to the weather on the North side, it would have been one tough climb!
Base camp (5,200m) was marked with a plaque. Obviously some people hadn’t properly acclimatised, judging by the numerous people around us suffering breathing difficulties. So much so, some were sucking air from a small oxygen canister! Is it a tourist trap? Probably. Is it overrun with local tourists just to tick off a bucket list item and take the obligatory photo? Absolutely. A great example of this was that the majority of people were bussed up and back from Tingri, some 6-8 hours return, making for a long return trip. Instead, we stayed up at Rongbuk, and were rewarded the next morning with some great views. Nevertheless it is still worth making this stop on your Tibet journey.
Cho Oyu Advance Base Camp (5,800m/19,028ft)
Wow! Not only did we see Cho Oyu (the ‘turquoise goddess’) close up and personal, we also trekked up to ABC with a climbing expedition. Reaching an altitude of some 5,800m, this was definitely not for the faint hearted. Coupled with the weather, the landscape up high was very stark, consisting of a rocky and snowy terrain.
Higher up, the climbers were stopped in their tracks above Camp 1 (around 6,000m). Deep snow hindered their progress and acclimatisation rotations on the mountain. On top of that, we were all informed that everyone had to exit Tibet by 1 October due to China’s 70th anniversary celebrations. This added considerable angst to the climbing party’s summit schedule. The professionalism of sherpas and climbers prevailed, combined with Climbalaya’s excellent logistics and planning. As a result, successful summits were achieved. This included one climber who planned to ski down from the summit!
You can read more about our trek to Cho Oyu Advance Base Camp here which we did as part of our Project Base8000.
Shishapangma (North) Base Camp (5,157m/16,919ft)
We never thought we would make it! The Chinese had officially closed the mountain to all climbers for the season. Plus the reluctance of our Tibetan driver to almost refuse to drive the some 20kms along a very rocky and bumpy gravel road from where the bitumen road ended. We were then chased down by the ‘park custodian’ who cut us off in our tracks, gesturing and demanding some 1,000 Chinese yuan for our right of passage. ‘But it’s normally free to drive to base camp’, we protested – obviously not on this day it wasn’t.
So, after all that, the easy part we discovered was the drive back to the Tibet/Nepal border, overnighting in Kyirong. Crossing over into Nepal the next morning however, was different. We had to navigate some 6 military check posts plus numerous landslides cutting off the road. Reaching Kathmandu some 9 hours later, tasting our first cold beer and experiencing the first hot shower in 2 weeks – all went down very nicely indeed.
You can read more about our trek to Shishapangma Base Camp here which we did as part of our Project Base8000.
Onwards and upwards!
Trevor
Insights
- Border crossing: The Kyirong Border Crossing is the main crossing between Tibet, China and Nepal. Opening hours are usually 9.30am-2.30pm.
- The road from the Tibet border to Kathmandu is very rough, with a journey time of 7-8 hours. Much longer during the rainy monsoon season.
- All foreign travellers must be on an organised tour to visit Tibet.
- Getting to Tibet is not difficult as long as you use a reputable travel agency.
- Any travel agency you use, either in Kathmandu or based in Tibet, will take care of all travel arrangements for you inside Tibet including organising your visa and permit (you need both).
- As China only has one time zone, Tibet is 2 1/4 hours ahead of Kathmandu. This means the sun rose very late around 7:30am!
- Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram plus all Google applications are blocked. If you install a VPN on your phone before arriving in Tibet then it’s possible to access these apps. However this only seems only to work if you’re using mobile data, not wifi. You can’t install VPNs once in Tibet.