Tibet was a little bit disappointing to be honest and I ended only staying a few nights in Lhasa. Glad I went but won’t be in a hurry tog et back there.  There’s no direct flights from Hong Kong to Lhasa so you need to go to China, which I was never keen on but I bit the bullet, and decided Chengdu was the best place to fly to and out of.  What an absolute shit show doing that. You can read about the entire ordeal in “What You Need to Know”.  Like Bhutan, you need to hire a tour guide, I booked though a company called Explore Tibet.  After a nightmare flight from Chengdu to Lhasa, I stormed off the plane. There’s no immigration as such so you just blow right out of the airport and didn’t have to wait for bags because I only had a carry on.  I was basically the first one out.  The guide from Explore Tibet was nowhere to be seen, I walked around like a plonker looking like a lost tourist, which I indeed was, and after 10 minutes called the muppets at Explore Tibet.  Long story short, after about 30 minutes I eventually found the guide, but not a good start to the trip and that pretty much summed up the entire time in Tibet.

Lhasa Tibet

Yamdrok Lake was nice, driving through the untouched country reminded me of New Zealand and if I was the sentimental type I might have cried.  Luckily I’m not a pussy and just enjoyed it.  It’s basically like a massive Central Otago in New Zealand, sweeping baron vistas with blue lakes and mountains – gorgeous.  Unfortunately that’s about where the good stuff ends.  With the exception of one part of Lhasa, it’s a big eye sore and it’s like someones dumped a big Chinese city in the middle of Tibet.  A real shame because if it was more “Tibetan” it’d be much better.

I only planned to stay 3 nights in Lhasa then a night at Chengdu Airport then bugger off back to Hong Kong, but because Lhasa was so disappointing, I cut it short and went home a day earlier.  Okay, so I didn’t do any trekking, which is perhaps a completely different story, but if you plan on going to Tibet, there’s no need to stay any more than 2 days in Lhasa, you can do everything in that time.

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