BEIJING TO LHASA
 

Dear All:

I am in desperate need for advice. My wife and I wanted to go to Lhasa from Beijing and we face the wide known issue of the permit "requireemnt". I contacted a Beijing travel agency and they said we need to take a tour to go to Lhasa as we cannot go by ourselves, the tour was USD$1,300 per person for four days (including airfare). I want to know if its possible for two persons to got Lhasa by themselves or not and if the answer is yes, how? (airplane ticket, dealing with any questions in Chengdu or Lhasa, etc)

Your help will be greatly appreciated

Ivan

In May, my husband and I flew to Chengdu, purchased one-way airline tickets to Lhasa from a agent recommended in LP, and never had a problem. We never saw a "permit" of any kind. We purchased return tickets on the day we returned to Chengdu at the airport in Lhasa. We had wanted to fly from Lhasa to Chongqing but there was no flight on the day we traveled. We did have altitude sickness problems, however, and I recommend that you take the presciption Diamox with you.

There have been a few posters on this board who purchased their air tickets from agencies in Chengdu without buying a tour, so it's definitely possible to travel to Lhasa independently. I don't know if agencies in Beijing will also do this. Perhaps someone else can confirm.

Even if you decide on a tour, $1300 per person is very high. Airfare from Beijing will cost more but doesn't account for such a big difference. We purchased a 4 day tour from an agency in Chengdu and paid approx. $550 per person including air (Chengdu-Lhasa, Lhasa-Chongqing). And there were other packages available from Chengdu for less than that.

As far as altitude sickness, my husband and I both took a ginkgo biloba supplement and felt that it helped with acclimatization. We had no problems other than slight dizzyness that went away after the first hour (I've had problems with nausea/heachache before camping at 11,000 ft). We took 120mg twice a day starting 5 days before flying into Lhasa and continuing until the day we left Lhasa. There's some information on the use of ginkgo as an AMS preventative on the Everest Base camp medical clinic site:

http://www.basecampmd.com/expguide/amspremed.shtml

I should note that anyone who takes blood thinning medications is advised not to take ginkgo.

I know that altitude can affect a person differently each time and what works on one person make not work on another but wanted to share our experience for those who prefer not to take Diamox.

Thank you all for your advice. I feel much more comfortable now knowing that my trip to Lhasa is not conditioned to having to take a very expensive tour.

I will try to see if I can buy the tickets directly in Beijing and if not, I will just fly to Chengdu and get them from there. Do you remember what airline you flew on?

We flew Air China from Chengdu to Lhasa and from Lhasa to Chongqing. Have a great trip and please report back on your experience with getting tickets in Beijing.

One more thing. I flew through Chengdu and the Wind Horse Tours local agent was Khamtreks. They are the ones who arranged the Tibetan permit. Their phone number is 86-28-86120141. Their email is [email protected]
Perhaps they can arrange only the air ticket and permit.

hey Ivan,

I was in Lhasa last year, and I bought tickets with China Southwest going Chengdu-Lhasa-Kunming it was a great route.

In agreement with everyone else, you don't need a "special Visa" to go to Lhasa, those visa's are not being used anymore as China wants to open up tourism to Tibet. You may find that some agents in Chengdu may charge you an extra 100.00 RMB for a paper which you will never see that "registers" you to visit Lhasa.

Enjoy..and spin a prayer wheel for me.

Although sometime has passed, I want to thank you all for your advice regarding travelling between Beijing and Lhasa. My wife and I ended not going to Lhasa since it was so expensive to travel there from Beijing and we had too little time. I guess if we had gone to Chengdu and tried to works things out from there, as all of you suggested, things would have been a lot easier and cheaper too. We are planning to go to China agian in the spring so lets see if this time we can get to make the trip to Lhasa. We are not sure yet if we will go from Nepal or Chengdu, any suggestions?

Lhasa is a must-see. It was definitely the highlight of our trip to China...an amazing place. We flew through Chengdu. I know most people shun tours but we organized a private tour just for the two of us with our own Tibetan tour guide (English-speaking)and driver. That really added something to the trip because we got a chance to talk to our guide about the politics and on-going issues. Plus he gave us a LOT more information than we would have figured out on our own. We arranged it all through a travel agent in Guilin...they were great. I can't tell you exactly how much that portion of the trip cost because we had them arrange all of it for us, but it couldn't have been more than $400-500 each for airfare, hotel, guide and driver...4 nights in Lhasa.
www.easytourchina.com

Enjoy!