Itinerary

I've been bouncing around Tibet and Xinjiang for the past few weeks, staying at a random assortment guesthouses, tents, trucker dorms, and creepy old Chinese hotels. Internet access has been sparse, as has hot water and indoor plumbing. I'm currently stationed in the relatively modern city of Kashgar (as modern as a city with donkeys pulling carts down the street can be, I guess) in Southwestern Xinjiang. The past few weeks have been kind of a blur, but I'm going to try to detail some of the high points while I have some free time...

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At this time last month, I knew next to nothing about Tibet.

That being said, it was a part of China I had not yet seen and it seemed interesting enough, so I set off to meet an old friend to organize an impromptu trip there. And knowing my friend, it would not likely be an ordinary trip down the well beaten tourist path, but an epic adventure to the very outskirts of civilization. We met up in the city of Chengdu, which is a launching port or sorts, as there are both regular flights and trains to and from Tibet as well as a number of travel agencies that specialize in all things Tibetan.

As it turns out, traveling to Tibet is a bit more complicated than traveling to other parts of China. Because of the political unrest in Tibet, the Chinese government likes to keep a close eye on everything there, including foreign tourists.

As a foreigner traveling to Tibet, you are first required to apply for a heap of government permits. Furthermore, throughout your stay in Tibet, you must be accompanied by a government approved tour guide (lest you wander off the tour bus and incite your own Tibetan uprising). Thus most trips to Tibet are arranged through a "tour" which includes all permits, a guide, a driver, and vehicle rental.

While most tours center around the city of Lhasa and the surrounding sites, we would be taking a more circuitous path. After arriving in Lhasa in central Tibet, we would head all the way west toward Mount Kailash near the border of India. From there we would head northward along the rather charitably entitled Xinjiang-Tibet "Highway", finally exiting into the Chinese province of Xinjiang. In total, we would be racking up over 3000 km and countless hours of driving over 15 days, stuffed in the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser.


The total cost for the permits, guide, driver, and car rental would come to 36,000 CNY or roughly $5500 USD - not including transportation to Lhasa, entrance fees, food, or lodging. To help defray the costs and to keep us company, we recruited another two travelers in Chengdu to come with us. The more the merrier and all.

Now if spending two weeks stuffed in the back of a Land Cruiser with three broke backpackers, driving great distances across poorly kept roads, at high altitude and in inclement weather DOES NOT sound like an ideal vacation to you... well then you are thinking a lot more clearly than I was at the time.

This was the original itinerary given to us by the travel agency (which as it turned out, may or may not have bore close relation to our actual itinerary):


To be continued...