My wife and I just returned from our Tibet trip and so I thought I would write a brief report.
I booked through The SnowLion Agency – and found Wangden fantastic to get information from. They were a touch more expensive than Beijing based agencies, but we wanted to guarantee a Tibetan guide etc.
We only had two weeks to complete the trip from Australia – so we flew to Beijing, by staying a night there we got nearly two full days. We had not been to China before, and so based on Thorntree recs, we stayed at the Jade Garden Hotel which turned out to be a great choice for location (walked to TS and the Forbidden City etc).
The second evening we caught the train to Lhasa. Wangden had made it clear that he had little chance of getting soft sleepers on the train for us – and we didn’t. The train tickets had been waiting at our Hotel in Beijing as promised, and while the station was VERY busy, it was quite easy to find our hard sleeper spots.
To be honest, hard sleeper was no problem, and we ended up sharing our room with three young uni students going home for holidays. Some limited, but very interesting conversations help the long trip pass more quickly.
I should also mention that while I was looking forward to the train trip, the first 24 hours were close to boring. Perhaps it was the April conditions, but there seemed to be a lot of smog, desert, and frequent building sites – lots of brown and grey. The second half of the trip was great (crossing Tibet), but the altitude had hit many of us (including me) but didn’t seem to bother my wife. I felt ill, and winded when walking, but not as sick as some. Oxygen was pumped into most rooms, and it seemed to help.
We arrived in Lhasa, where our guide Tsewang Lhamo was waiting (we had requested her via TT recs – and she turned out to be fantastic – totally recommend her to all. She knew heaps about all the sites, and was prepared to admit occasionally if she did not know something.)
We stayed and saw the sites in Lhasa for four days, and then travelled to EBC after a night in Shigatse. The night in the Yak Tent at EBC was a real highlight, even if we struggled to sleep due to altitude.
I should point out that SnowLion wanted us to spend an extra night on the way to EBC, but we shortened it due to our time pressures.
I won’t bore with other details about the sites (I imagine most trips include all the good stuff), but this was a real trip of a lifetime, the monasteries and mountains were amazing, the food was very good in most places (even as almost complete vegetarians), and our driver made us feel safe even on some interesting roads.
We finished our tour at the Nepal border and we crossed to fly home from Kathmandu.
I hope this is helpful to someone, and happy to answer questions if anyone has any.