Life, the Universe & Tibet
AN ACCIDENTAL TRAVEL GUIDE to eastern tibet:
Travels in the
EASTERN BORDER LANDS
of the TIBETAN PLATEAU
A how-to-get-there guide with details of routes and informative experiences of a seasoned traveller to Eastern Tibet over a period of eight years. With three adventurous winter motorcycle trips through off the beaten track places. Camping at sub-zero temperatures at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres. A wild landscape of mountains and grasslands on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Meeting friendly people and visiting exotic and ancient Buddhist places. An experience of a lifetime.
Whether you are an on-the-ground explorer or an armchair adventurer, this guide, whilst primarily as entertainment, is meant to encourage you towards the possibility of some adventurous and unregulated travel in Eastern Tibet. It is based on several years of travel to Kham which straddles the Dri Chu (river), the headwaters of the Yangtze that thunders out of the Tibetan Plateau.
You will find enough knowledge in this book to get there and home again. Flights, buses and motorbikes are all covered in detail. With locations, experiences and photographs that, once you’ve read this guide, will make you feel you have been there. Sit back, read and let the adventure wash over you.
Let's Do it Different !
“Let’s go to Tibet” invariably means Nepal and Lhasa. This guide expands on the equally interesting and the very culturally pure area of Eastern Tibet known as Kham and its people the Khampa. They are renowned for their bravery, marksmanship, horsemanship and fierce sense of independence in an awe-inspiring and dramatic mountainous landscape.
Lhasa, in the Chinese designated Tibetan Autonomous Region, is fast becoming a theme park. There are cultural icons in Lhasa that are worth the visit, like the Potala and Jhokang, but you will have to go in a group, obtain a special permit and be accompanied by a Chinese Government “Minder”.