Travel China Planner

The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation inked a new tourism agreement with China’s Tibet Tourism Bureau at the third tourism fair held in Katmandu, the capital of Nepal.

Nepal will arrange an open roundtrip air route from Katmandu to Lhasa, while a Chinese airline will launch a Guangzhou-Lhasa-Katmandu route. The two parties will also work together on rafting and hiking routes from Mustang in Nepal to Manasarovar in Tibet. Also the Nepal Tourism Board will further discuss promoting tourism with Tibet Tourism Bureau.

Murari Bahadur Karki, the joint secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, hopes this agreement will be a new milestone for Tibet and Nepal in boosting the development of the tourism industry.

At a promotional campaign jointly held by the Consulate General of Nepal in Lhasa, the Nepal Tourism Board, and the China Tibet Tourism Bureau, an official from the Consulate General of Nepal promised to 22 travel wholesalers that in the near future travel agencies in Tibet would be able to offer visa services to Chinese tourists who want to visit Nepal.

“This is what we have been longing for all along,” said Liu Jin, the sales manager of Tibet China International Travel Service. “Tibet and Nepal both have abundant tourism resources that are strongly complementary to each other.”

According to Shrestha, the director of Nepal Tourism Board, between 2006 and 2008, 500,000 tourists visited Nepal each year and 7% of these were from China. In 2008, Tibet welcomed more than 3 million domestic and foreign tourists. Nepal hopes the promotion will attract more people to visit the country by way of Tibet.

Wang Songping, the director of the China Tibet Tourism Bureau, stated that Nepal is an important hub for Tibet’s tourist market, while Lhasa is also an important transit point for Chinese visiting Nepal via Tibet. Wang stated that the cooperation between the two regions would certainly be a success.

Keke Xili, the mysterious and least inhabited area of Qinghai province in West China, has been formally opened to tourists, but for the protection of the unspoiled environment the number of tourists allowed to visit the region will be limited to 1,000 each year.

Qing Zang Highway – Ke Ke Xi Li Tibet Antelope

Representative from Keke Xili Eco-adventure Travel Service Company stated that each tour group is allowed to have a maximum of 15 persons and these tourists will have the chance of appreciating the grand and mysterious snow mountains and grassland, learning about the rare wildlife species, experiencing the life of the mountain patrolmen and carrying out various eco-friendly activities during their journey which will usually last for five to six days.

It is understood that tourists must present their health certificate upon registering to join a tour group and they must undergo a physical checkup at Ge’ermu in Qinghai before leaving for the nature reserve. In addition, tourists must follow strict environment rules after they enter Keke Xili.

Hoh Xil,Kekexili,China

Nicknamed “Kingdom of Animals”, Keke Xili is one of the few regions in the world that has retained its original environment. With its unique resources such as alpine grassland, wilderness marshland, and rare animal and plant species, the region is an invaluable ecological resource.

Kekexili, Tibettour, Chinatour

Welcome to Lhasa

Though before I began gushing about the wonders of Tibet I should preface this by saying that I was on a tour. I’m not talking about a massive bus, wearing matching jackets and following a flag or plastic flower. Actually, it was just Jason and I, set up with a Tibetan guide and driver.

The moment I stepped off the plane I felt the breathless, light-headed, panicky feeling one gets at such an altitude. I had expected this to affect me, just not so immediately. Lhasa has an altitude of 11,975 feet above sea level. The altitude has less effect if you are younger, at least in terms of developing life-threatening AMS. The main symptoms we noticed were being constantly out of breath and also the inability to get a sound night’s sleep.

Another surprise to me was the arid, brown landscape. I had imagined Lhasa would be buried under mounds of white snow, but this idea was no doubt influenced by too many Ads and movies. In reality, Lhasa’s location on a plateau hemmed by mountains keeps the climate relatively moderate year round.

Our guide and driver were both Tibetan, extremely knowledgeable about the region, culture, and Buddhist faith. Lhasa has a population of about 250, 000. We were told now that nearly half of these are Han Chinese, who are immigrating in waves spurred on by better business opportunities in the area and government incentives.

Despite this growth only a tiny portion of the Tibetan plateau is inhabited, with Tibetans still holding the majority outside of the larger cities. Most are nomadic herdsmen; others farm barley, wheat, and potatoes. Some of these nomads and villagers only see the city once in their lifetime, if at all.

The next day our first stop was the Potala Palace. Books have been written on this fascinating building, so I won’t attempt a detailed description. A few interesting things that stuck with me:

-Since traditionally the Dalai Lama is both the spiritual and political leader of Tibet the palace is also divided into two sections. The “red” buildings had housed the members of the Tibetan government while the “white” palace was home to the Buddhist monks.

-Tibetans pay a much smaller fee to enter than tourists. Those from outside the city often only get to come once a year. Families, including children of all ages, come to pray and leave offerings.

-Before the palace was built there existed only a cave shrine, built by King Songtsen Gampo in 637, the first Tibetan king to convert to Buddhism. Construction was begun on the actual palace in 1645 under the supervision of the fifth Dalai Lama, but the sacred cave remains. Thus our guide’s claim that the Potala has 999 rooms and one cave.

-The artwork is astounding. The majority of the previous Dalai Lamas are buried here. Nearly everyone in Tibet is given a water burial or sky burial except for the lamas, who are buried in giant gold stupas. Another amazing piece of art was the giant, three-dimensional Kalachakra Mandala in one of the galleries made from copper and gold.

After visiting the Potala we headed to the Sera Monastery, just outside of Lhasa. The main purposeof out visit was to see the monk’s debate. This is standard practice every afternoon in the courtyard.

On one side the younger monks debate enthusiastically with much gesturing, yelling, smiling, and clapping of hands each time they made a point. The older monks congregated in small groups sitting in the shade and and have much more reserved conversations. Both Tibetans and tourists are welcome to come and watch, though our guide said that since they were using the very technical language of the old scriptures.

The following day we visited the Medicine Buddha wall where many Tibetans come to pray for good health. The wall is a large rock slab covered in painted carvings of the Medicine Buddha and other deities. The rocks in front of the Buddha were literally worn smooth from the prostrations of worshippers.

We finished off the day visiting a traditional medicine clinic, a nunnery, and wandering around market amid stalls selling cloth, giant parcels of yak butter, household items, jewelry, metalwork, nuts, and other miscellany. It was all a strange mixture of the old world meets the new. It is common to see monks clad in traditional burgundy robes wearing a pair of worn Nike sneakers and talking on a cell phone.

Next, we are on the road to Shigatse, Tibet’s 2nd largest city.

It is difficult, at best, to encapsulate travel experience in a few hundred words. ‘But a summary should be concise’, you’d say. And we agree. So here goes our feeble attempt to cram our travel experience, all 12 days , into the impossible, proverbial nutshell. From the get-go, right from jump-street, we knew that backpacking through the northern China could prove to be the best of times or the worst of times. Looking back, it was truly the former. One cannot help but marvel at the uniqueness of armies buried and resurrected; of never-ending walls disappearing into the clouds; of clouds of smog and olympic dreams; of whole cities stuck in time and of a Buddha statue with a toe so big that it still dwarfs the combined height of two grown men. Tibetan vocalizations and bus rides on the edge of nothing; we’ll never forget. Monastries and temples, mushrooms on a stick, riverside theatres and pedalling thru rice paddies; these lie within our dreams. More than decent spendings, big old moons and snow mountains; much more than misty karst peaks, fast-flowing rivers and rice terraces and superceding even Jiuzhaigou, China’s treasures are its people.The family from the hotel in Lijiang, the Naxi ladies, the Tibetan singers, the driver from Simatai and the many others whose names we don’t know.