600

Hello, everybody!
We got Tibet permit finally and flying to Lhasa on August 26.
Have no regular access to Internet. Going to write about our trip once we are back from Tibet.

601

Thanks for the reply. We are planning on going to Tibet last week of Sep or first of Oct, so hopefully by then we will know more.
We are currently 3 Israelis, but are trying to find more people (at least 2 more) to assemble a group of 5.

Thanks,

602

@602

i am sure you will find min. 2 more israeli... i am sure of this.
actually on all of my travels i haven t seen a group less than 2 israeli.

603

Yesterday I got information that permit will be issued only to the Tours entering after September 19th.

604

I just came back from an eight day tour of Tibet. I went with a group of three Americans (one person dropped out in the last minute, and the fifth person on the permit was a "ghost")

We originally wanted to make the kora around Mt. Kailash, but the travel bureau refused to issue or deny us a permit. Call it a passive denial. We were told that the Kailash and EBC region is currently closed at the moment.

I met a few other tour groups while I was in Lhasa. A large group of elderly Israelis, a large group of happy Germans, a family from Spain, and a multinational group of 10+ people biking from Lhasa to Kathmandu. They told me that originally the group was larger but people from certain nationalities were not allowed to come (Norway and the UK if I remember correctly). They booked everything in Kathmandu beforehand.

During these eight days I got to see Lhasa, Samye, Gyanste, the Chim-puk caves, and Shigaste, Lhasa is basically a police state right now with security elements everywhere. They are even checking IDs to enter the Barkhor. Lhasa is awash with Chinese tourists. There were many young Chinese in Lhasa who biked or hitchiked from Sichuan.

My favorite places were the smaller monasteries away from the crowds such as the nunnery near the Chim-puk caves. The energy at Samye is particularly intense. It is a very special place indeed.

Eight days is barely enough to scratch the surface of Tibet. I was happy though to talk to the Tibetan locals and Chinese tourists, getting a better understanding of what modern Tibet is going through.

It sucks we couldn't go to Kailash, but I guess we didn't have the karma this time. Next time though, next time.

605

and the fifth person on the permit was a "ghost"

haaha
reminds me of a former colleague who was persuaded to accept the organizational changes of a merger with the promise that he would still be leading a team, and who later complained that the people in his team where "ghost people".

606

We are 2 Canadians who received our Tibet Entry Permits today.
Our contact in Beijing had no difficulty getting them for us.
I wish you all luck in obtaining you're entry permits, but it appears
with the correct contacts and advice it is possible to obtain them.

I have read here that Tibet is closed for September.
Clearly this is not the case.

607

A bit cryptic and little information provided, AJ. Was your "contact" a commercial travel agency, in other words--did your permits come through the Tibet Tourist Bureau? Or was your contact in some other branch of the Chinese government, university, or corporate world, where the permits might have been obtained via another avenue/Ministry influence and thus circumvented the TTB? If the latter, that's not an option for most visitors. If the former, do you care to share the agent company name on open forum, or is that inadviseable?

608

607 has got permit as your decument was deliver to Tourism office before 23rd August. From 24th permit has been stoped untill 20th September but from then things will get better. Still earliest you can enter Tibet again will be around 30th september-5th Ocotber.

609

#607 - Your info is rather missleading......

Tibet is pretty much closed for September - no permits are been processed now. You got lucky as your contact most likely got your application in before the current closure deadline - that is all! A few groups will be in Tibet in September but as Tenzin points out above that is because their permit application was submitted before September 24th.

Of course - there will always be a few folks who manage to get around the closure. This is China and guangxi rules afterall!

610

It was a regular agency with no circumvention.
It is through the TTB.

They tell me that Tibet is not closed, and they are still getting permits.

Note we are only going to Lhasa and not talking about EBC.

611

And who is your contact on beijing? Can you share it with us?

How much did you paid for that?

612

Hi ,
We just got back from a 10 day trip to Tibet and on by land to Kathmandu ..Had a great time though Lhasa had a large police presence . We are a family of 5 ,all on Australian passports and got our permits issued on Aug 5 thru Snowlion tours .
The trip itself was uneventful , though permits were checked everywhere and we were not allowed to visit EBC .( was not on the permit )
Saw a few other groups ,large German ,Spanish and Polish groups and a few other smaller ones ,though 5 seemed to be the min group size .Loads of Chinese tourists all ove the place .

613

hi,

we are a dutch couple and we want to go to tibet in the next month. we leave australia on the 10th of oktber and we wanna fly from KL to Chengdu take from there the himalayan express to lhasa and do a 10 or 15 day trip to kathmandu.
is tibet still open for visotors in middle october begin november and is it possible to do everest basecamp.?
any recommendations with tourguides?

many thx Marc and Anne

614

The closer it gets to mid October, the harder it may be to obtain a Tibet Travel Bureau permit because mid October is the time of the transition of government. Right now to have any chance of getting to Tibet you should be a group of at least 5 persons of the same nationality. And currently there are no reports of visitors getting anywhere near Everest Base Camp or doing a kora around Kailash. Do start contacting agencies but the bottom line is that nothing is happening now until September 24 and it is unclear what will happen after that.

Ruth