Planning China trip in Sept with journey to Lhasa, Tibet. If I understand correctly you must get your Tibet Travel documents and arrange travel with a Tibetian tour company. Do I understand this correctly?

Please give me details of your trip to include tour companies you worked with. We plan tp fly from Beijing and spend four days in Lhasa.

I was there in 2004 and what we did was get our travel documents in country. At least back then if you listed Tibet as part of your intinerary, your visa to China would be denied. We got our Tibetian visa in Bejing and arranged air fare and a tour guide (not as part of a group) all in Bejing from a travel agant I met on line before we left. He was great back then. This all may have changed but it is worth looking into further. We also got altitude sickness medicine from our local (USA) doctor before we left and had no problems except for getting tired easily. We were in our late 50's at the time.

The rules have changed and changed again since 2004. You may well get more up to date info on Lonely Planet's thorntree. Also, four days is about enough time to acclimatize. Before you leave. Many people arrange travel in-country in Chengdu or Kunming.

Hey people, has anyone traveled in Lhasa? Let me hear from you.

I just came back from a 3-week trip to Tibet. In my opinion, just 4 days in Lhasa is not worth the trouble with acclimation and the hassles and expenses for the travel permit.

i heard about the same stuff before heading to tibet, and therefore found a tour operator to arrange everything for us. in our case, we had a week long tibet trip, basically covered all major sites, including Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and the Barkhor Street, monastry and so forth. our guide from china odyssey tours even took us to the local tibetan families and enjoyed their chaang, which was amazing

Again I was there in 2004. Before the railroad. I loved it. It had not been touristized like so many other places. My wife and I were in the Peace Corps in Korea in the late 60's early 70's and Tibet reminded us of Korea back then. We got the altitude sickness prevention pills here in the USA and had no problems.