Lhasa and Everest Base Camp Tibet Tour

Overland in, and why that is the right way round

Day 3 drives from Kathmandu to the Kerung border at Rasuwagadhi, and day 4 crosses the Himalaya over the Gyatso La at 5,236 m onto the plateau. Two days of climbing by road from 1,400 m to 4,300 m is meaningfully gentler than a flight into Lhasa at 3,656 m, and it is the main reason we sell this direction rather than the reverse.

The Kerung road, and what the monsoon does to it

The Nepali side runs up the Trishuli and Bhote Koshi gorges and it is a landslide corridor between June and September. The crossing has also closed at short notice for political and administrative reasons more than once in the past decade. We watch it, and if it shuts we fly the group into Lhasa and run the itinerary backwards, which works and is harder on your body.

Flying out from Lhasa

Himalaya Airlines and Sichuan Airlines fly Lhasa to Kathmandu on weekdays in about an hour and thirty-five minutes. Sit on the left: the whole Himalaya is out of that window and you will recognise the ground you drove across. It is the single best commercial flight in Asia on a clear day.

Fifteen to twenty working days, and no way round it

The Tibet Travel Permit is issued against a paid, confirmed itinerary and takes fifteen to twenty working days, and the Kathmandu group visa five more. That is the real lead time on this trip. We need passport scans six weeks out and would rather have them eight, and we cannot make a government office move faster.

There is no helicopter rescue in Tibet

The most important logistical fact on this page, and the difference between a bad day here and a bad day in Nepal. If somebody is seriously ill at Rongbuk, the answer is the vehicle and a long drive down. This is why the itinerary spends two nights climbing to Tingri instead of one, and why we would rather lose the Everest night than push somebody through it.

11 nights, and what each one is

Heat, hot water, power and signal

Heating

In the Lhasa, Gyantse and Shigatse hotels. Not at Tingri reliably, and not at all at Rongbuk, which at 4,980 m is the coldest night by a wide margin.

Hot shower

Everywhere except Rongbuk. That is one night without, which is a considerably better run than any trek in this catalogue.

Charging

In the hotels, and from the vehicle on the road. Nothing dependable at Rongbuk, so charge everything at Tingri.

Wifi

In the Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse hotels. Note that most Western services are blocked in China: install a VPN before you leave rather than trying to do it on arrival.

Phone signal

China Mobile covers the whole route including Rongbuk, which surprises people. Your home SIM roams expensively and the guide can arrange a local one in Shigatse.

Water

Bottled water carried in the vehicle, included. Tap water is not drinkable anywhere on this route.

Oxygen

Bottled oxygen travels in the vehicle for the whole plateau section. It is there for the Rongbuk night in particular.

Bedding

Provided everywhere. At Rongbuk it is a mattress and heavy quilts in a shared room and you will want your own sleeping bag on top of them.

If you eat differently

Twelve weeks, and what to do in each of them

Written for somebody who walks a bit and does not train. If you already run or cycle regularly, start at the eight-week block. Nothing here needs a gym.

1. 1

   Before you book

   Talk to your own doctor

   Particularly if you are over sixty or have any heart, lung or blood pressure condition. You will sleep at 4,980 m on the fourth day out of Kathmandu, having driven there, in an unheated room, with no helicopter rescue available. That is a conversation to have before the deposit rather than after it.

2. 2

   Six weeks out

   A little cardiovascular work, honestly a little

   Two or three sessions a week of anything aerobic. It will not protect you from altitude and it makes the Potala steps and the Rongbuk walk more pleasant. Anybody promising you more than that from six weeks of training is selling something.

3. 3

   Four weeks out

   Sort the paperwork out

   This is the substitute for training on a trip like this. Passport scans to us, a VPN installed on your phone and laptop, travel insurance bought and the certificate sent over, and any prescriptions filled with enough to spare.

4. 4

   Two weeks out

   Sleep

   Arriving rested matters more here than on any trek we run, because you cannot acclimatise your way out of exhaustion when the altitude arrives in a Land Cruiser.

5. 5

   The week before

   Do not travel with a chest infection

   A cold that would be a nuisance at home is a real problem at 4,980 m and raises your risk of altitude illness substantially. Tell us instead of pressing on; we would much rather move you to a later departure.

What we do about it, in order

1. 1

   Every evening from the border, we measure

   Your guide carries a pulse oximeter and records your oxygen saturation and pulse each evening from day 3, and again any morning you are not right. On a trip where the altitude arrives faster than the body does, a written trend across four days is worth more than anybody's impression.

2. 2

   There is oxygen in the vehicle

   Bottled oxygen travels with the group for the whole plateau section, and it is there for the Rongbuk night in particular. It is a stopgap that buys time for a descent rather than a treatment.

3. 3

   The Rongbuk night is the one we will give up

   This is our protocol and it differs from most operators'. If somebody is unwell at Tingri, we do the Everest viewpoint as a day trip and come back down to sleep at 4,300 m, or at Shigatse. You see the same mountain from the same place and you do not sleep at 4,980 m to do it. Nobody has ever regretted this and several people have been very glad of it.

4. 4

   If it is worse than that, we drive down

   Descent is the only treatment that works and here it is quick: Shigatse at 3,900 m is a long day from Rongbuk and Kerung at 2,800 m is reachable from Tingri. Having a road under you is the one real advantage this trip has over a trek.

5. 5

   There is no helicopter, and the hospital is far

   Helicopter rescue is not available to tourists in Tibet. The nearest adequate hospital is at Shigatse, seven or eight hours from Rongbuk. This is why the protocol above gives up the Everest night rather than pressing on with it.

Who travels with you

A licensed Tibetan guide for the whole time you are in the region and a driver who knows the road. The guide is a legal requirement rather than a service level: independent travel by foreign passport holders is not permitted anywhere in Tibet, and there is no version of this trip where you wander off for an afternoon. Ours are Tibetan rather than Han Chinese, which matters for what you will learn in a monastery.

What a guide can and cannot say

Worth knowing before you ask. Your guide is licensed by a government body and can lose that licence, and there are subjects on which they will change the topic. That is not evasiveness and it is not ignorance; it is somebody's job and family. Ask about the iconography, the history, the monasteries and the pilgrims, and you will get a great deal. Push on contemporary politics in front of a checkpoint and you are putting a stranger at risk for your curiosity.

The vehicle

A Land Cruiser for a party of four to eight, a minibus above that, with your luggage, bottled water and oxygen in it. Six of the twelve days are spent in it for five to eight hours, which is worth being clear-eyed about: this is a road trip across a plateau and the driving is a large part of the experience rather than an interruption to it.

Tipping

Not traditional in Tibet and now expected of tour groups. About $120 to $180 per traveller for the guide and the driver together, handed over on the last evening in Lhasa.

Photography, and where the line is

Inside most monastery halls, photography is either forbidden or charged for, sometimes at CNY 100 a chapel, and the money goes to the monastery. Ask, and accept the answer. What is not negotiable: do not photograph military installations, checkpoints, border posts or police, do not photograph monks without asking, and do not photograph anybody prostrating.

Sky burial is not a sight

You may be offered the chance to see one. Do not go. It is a funeral, families are present, and the practice is now legally protected from spectators in several parts of Tibet. An operator arranging this for you is doing something both crass and increasingly illegal.

Where the money goes, honestly

Less of it stays local than on our Nepal treks and we would rather say so plainly. The permits and reserve fees go to Chinese government bodies. The hotels, the vehicles and the guiding are largely Tibetan-run. Monastery entry fees, which on this itinerary come to well over a hundred dollars a head, go directly to the monasteries and are the most useful money you will spend here.

The Rongbuk problem

The road to the north side has made Everest reachable by anybody with a Land Cruiser, and the valley shows it. Rubbish, vehicle emissions and the sheer number of visitors are a live problem the Chinese authorities have responded to by capping access and running the eco-buses. We carry our waste out to Shigatse, we use the buses without complaining about them, and we would ask you not to leave prayer flags or anything else at the viewpoint.

You book first and apply second

This is the reverse of everywhere else you have travelled and it is the thing to make peace with. The Tibet Travel Permit is issued against a confirmed, paid itinerary with your hotels and your guide named on it, so you commit to the trip and then find out whether the paperwork clears. It is why our Tibet deposits carry a longer lead time than anything else we sell.

What we need from you, and when

Clear colour scans of your passport photo page at least six weeks out, and your occupation on the form. Journalist, photographer, diplomat and anything with 'government' in the job title are routinely refused, and an honest answer given early can usually be worked with. An answer that turns out to be wrong at the border cannot.

The group visa needs a group

The Kathmandu group visa is issued to a party on one sheet, and current practice is a minimum of five travellers. A couple joining one of our departures is fine. Two people asking for a private Tibet trip out of Kathmandu is the case where this falls down, and we will say so rather than take the deposit.

If the permit is refused, you get your money back

It happens occasionally, with no reason given and no appeal. We refund the Tibet portion in full when it does. It is the one part of a Tibet booking where the risk is genuinely ours rather than yours, and any operator not offering that is worth asking why.