Heart of Tibet
One of my favorite reads is the Wilderness Travel catalog (www.wildernesstravel.com). Browsing through, I came across the "Heart of Tibet", an in-depth exploration of Lhasa, Tibet's holiest city and a pilgrimage to the Tashiy Do Hermitage and Nam Tso Lake. Wilderness was the only one running a trip (at that time) to Nam Tso.
Tibet has always been on my "must see" list so we committed after reading the dossier, and detailed information immediately began arriving from Wilderness Travel.
This was an adventure tour with six nights in hotels and six nights of camping along with day hikes. There was extremely bumpy, rough road travel involved. Tibet roads are unpaved, vehicles get stuck, and it's dusty. Furthermore, the camping and day hiking were at very high altitudes. Once we reached Lhasa, all activities would be above 12,000 feet. It is always advisable to be in good physical shape, but even more important, you need a good sense of humor for this sort of travel. Things go wrong - and you have to roll with the punches.
I don't think it necessary for me to detail the ongoing China/Tibet problems. It's enough to know that tourism in Tibet is relatively new. There was no tourism until 1980 when foreigners were first allowed to enter.
Tibet is a high, dry, isolated land with a devout Buddhist population - filled with ruined monasteries, prayer flags and chortens (or stupas). A chorten/stupa is a Buddhist monument meant to remind humans of their potential for enlightenment.
Bumpy? Dusty? Potential for altitude problems? Bring it on...I couldn't wait to go! Picked the September, 2000 departure, and started making plans.....
