this might be of interest to people planning on going to tibet soon.
me and a friend entered tibet outside batang (chubalung) on may 17th. we crossed in the middle of the day and there were people at the checkpoint but all they did was wave and scream hello. we have passed A LOT of military and police but no problems. we also passed the checkpont in markam.
we have been camping so far but the other day my friend broke a spoke. yesterday we checked into a hotel in zogang (they asked for passports). today outside a shop 3 policemen asked for my friends passport. they told him he had to go back and then left. they didnt even ask where he came from. we will have to spend one more night here but unless we are stopped again we will keep going towards lhasa tomorrow.
I'm quite positive that you will have no problem, last year we met some other cyclists who had the same problem in Markham, they were told not to continue to Lhasa, but nothing stopped them, they left the next day in the early morning.
We (a Hong Konger and a Thai) cycled through your route also, we passed through all checkpoints during broad daylight, nobody ever stopped us, yes, what they did was screaming hello!
Hey guys,
me and a buddy are heading out in sept for 3 weeks on the Llahsa to Kanthmandu highway if you can inform us of your trip as it unfolds with god, negative feedback would be appreciated.
Tulley Mars
pazu: i sure hope so! the problem is the "you never know" situation that comes from that it is illegal to be here but no one cares. that is very annoying to me. you never know when someone decides to enforce the law. at least the talk about more security after the ebc-protests seems to have been exaggerated.
btw, we will come by your cafe (hopefully) in 2 weeks or something.. my friend broke a spoke and managed to weld it together in zugong. it still works but probably needs to be replaced :)
dont you think the fact that you are both asian made it a bit easier for you? being swedish-looking sticks out a bit in these parts of the world :)
tulleymars: you can look at our trip at http://triptracker.net/trip/1855/<BR>we have a long way to go to the lhasa kathmandu hgw but were planning to go there.. i will post updates here also and you can send med pm if you have any questions...
a short update, we're in baxoi now. the police came once again to the internet cafe in the evening in zugong. we said we would take the bus in the morning and he seemed to be satisfied by that though he looked a bit more annoyed and was probably wondering what we were still doing there when he had told us to leave. in the morning we got up at 7 am and left.
We had the same problems in zugong.. and in Bayi we got told to go back to Lhasa (we told them we had come from Lhasa. Other than that no problem at all, except for broken spokes :(
The police in zugong where annoying, they found us in a restaurant (hiding) and I told them I was going to finish eating before I would go anywhere.. so they waited.
The checkpoints didn't care at all about us.
The dust from lhasa to Kathmandu was deadly, we took the bus.
Well, the never-know-what-is-going-to-happen situation is actually quite a part of a trip, isn't it more interesting to play cat and mouse with the PSB rather than crossing the checkpoints without any problem?
But from what I've heard from other foreign cyclists, I think you will make it.
It's quite true that it helped us a lot cuz we are Asian, but the fact is, the police may not recognize us as Chinese, they shouted to us in English! HELLO~~~ hellOO!!O!O!O!O
What type of spokes do you need? Oat (my partner) will help you to fix everything as much as possible.
pazu: i know im probably the only one, but actually i dont agree that hiding from the police adds much to the experience of cycling in tibet.. sure it gives you stories to tell afterwards but i wish i could go werever i wanted here because the scenery and the whole experience is amazing..
in bomi now, still no problems with the law :)
Yo ! where are you guys now? had any trouble further on?? I will leave chengdu in 2days to follow your way so im curious about your experiences along the way, cops, law, permits etc...
thnks and have a good ride!
grtz Wouter
Yo!
Chillin' in Gongbo'gyamda at the moment, no more beef with the law! :)
Zogang was the only place so far and there it was easy to get off the hook. We even stayed in Bayi last night and that place had a really weird feeling to it. No one would take us in the usual grotty hotels, they all said no foreigners. So we checked into a nice binguan and just waited for the PSB to knock on our door but no.. we should be in lhasa in 3 days now.
dont bother sneaking through anything in the dark, and good luck. you have some really amazing scenery ahead!
We just rode from Yunnan to Lhasa and on to Kathmandu with no permit. We took our percautions, passed through Yangying, Markham and Bayi at night without problems, but also saw lots of police that only waved at us..... Not sure of any of the precautions were neccesary. Did not use may hotels, camped or checked into cheaper truckstop type accomodation.
Tibet is awesome, dusty and awesome.
Patrick
trusted partner
