Tibet
Lhasa Tour
Lhasa Tsedang Tour
Art of Bhutan
Laya Gasa Trek
Lhasa Yamdrok Tso Lake
Important Information about Tibet
Main Features of the Tibetan Climate
1) Thin air, atmospheric pressure is low and oxygen content is less.
2) Sunshine is strong and long; because of high altitude on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau the air is thin, dusty, and the moisture content is less with high transparency; so the light capability loses very little and radiation of ray is much stronger.
3) Temperature tends to be lower and the range of temperature is great between day and night: owing to the height of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The atmospheric temperature is much lower than the drainage area of the Yangtse River even at same latitude, which is why the daily range of temperature is great.
4) The whole year can be divided into two distinct seasons: dry and rainy. Under the west wind in winter and the southwest wind changing in turn, the dividing line between dry and wet seasons in Tibet is very clear. Usually, the dry season is from October to April and the wet from May to September.
5) The complicated types of the climate and the abrupt fall of altitude: Tibet is higher in the northwest and lower in the southeast. The altitude drops from 5,000 m. to a few hundred m. The climate stretches from southeast to northwest include many changes such as tropical zone, subtropical zone, plateau temperate zone, plateau semi-temperate zone, plateau semi-frigid zone and plateau frigid zone. In high mountainous areas of the southeast part of Tibet and the southern slopes of the Himalayas, the temperature gradually drops down because the terrain rises up repeatedly, the climate has been shown in an abrupt change from tropical or subtropical zone to cold temperate zone and frigid zone.
Restrictions in Tibet
1) Unless you are invited as a guest to a tent or house, you are to remember not to step on the threshold of the door. When calling someone, you will add “La” behind his or her name to show respect. When you are asked by the host to take a seat, you should sit cross-legged and don’t stretch your legs with your feet pointing to the other. If someone gives you gifts, you should receive with both hands. When presenting gifts to someone, you'll bend your waist and lift up the gifts in both hands over your head to show respect. When you are offering tea, wine and cigarettes to someone, you are to offer them with both hands and don’t let your finger into the cup.
2) When the host proposes a toast, the guest should use the tip of his ring finger to dip a little to sprinkle in the air, mid-air and to the ground for three times as a sign of offer to heaven, earth and ancestors. After that, you should take a sip of wine, the host will refill it, you take another sip and your host will refill it the second time. A succession of this action will be repeated for three times till you are asked to bottom up the whole glass.
3) Tibetans don’t eat horse, dog and donkey, in some areas not even fish. We should respect their tradition.
4) Don’t clap your hand or spit behind Tibetans, for these behaviors will be considered extremely impolite.
5) Drawing out tongues and both palms cupping together are signs of respect.
6) When paying a visit to a temple or a monastery don't smoke inside or touch the images and the religious equipments and don’t take pictures inside a temple or monastery. Remember to walk around a temple in clockwise with the exception of Bon monasteries.
7) At encounters of wayside stupas, temples, Mani stone piles etc, you must walk around them in clockwise with the exception of the Bon followers who go anti-clockwise.
8) Vultures are considered holy birds in Tibetan people’s hearts, so don’t drive them away and hurt them. If you see certain yaks or sheep with red, green or yellow ribbons, don't disturb them.
The best time to enter Tibet
Though November to May is lower season for tour, it is still good opportunity for tourists to get to know the land and people, and its local folklores particularly in Lhasa, Shigatse, Lhoka and Nyingtri. The best time to enter Tibet is between May to October. Especially May, June, September and October are the golden time for tourists.
Medicines in preparation
There are some medicine shops in Lhasa sell medicines for preventing HAS (high altitude sickness) people who want to get more safety medicines should go to hospitals where you can have medicines in prevention recommended by doctors. Every day you should drink about 30 grams of water with brown sugar (don’t use the white sugar instead) and take several composite vitamin pills for 3 days which can reduce suffering from HAS.
High Altitude Sickness
Most people who go into Tibet care high altitude sickness. The air gets thinner when the altitude rises higher.
Oxygen content in air becomes relatively less and less when the rise of the altitude is quicker, for instance: when entering Tibet by plane, you cannot get acclimatized to the new environmental condition very quickly and your body may feel uncomfortable symptoms. Symptoms of high altitude sickness usually are headache, dizzy, asthma, fatigue, insomnia etc. Some people who suffer from hypertension and heart trouble should pay more attention to HAS. But if you treat HAS carefully, it can be avoided.
Preventions for HAS
Short of oxygen at high altitudes is the basic reason for suffers from HAS. Many places in Tibet have canned oxygen for sale. You may by one or two when in need. If your symptom is not serious, you’d better not take oxygen, but below methods may prove helpful.
1) At the beginning of your arrival to Tibet, you should better not eat or drink too much because it’ll increase the burden of your digestive system. You’d better not smoke or drink alcohols and eat more things containing rich vitamins like vegetables and fruit etc.
2) Don’t walk too fast or do running. You’d better drink more water and take a good rest.
3) Take care to put on more clothes and add a thick quilt to prevent catching cold. Because catching cold is one of the reasons for causing acute pulmonary emphysema of the highland.
4) Don’t increase psychological burden to yourself.
Necessary equipments when visiting Tibet
1) Clothes for keeping out cold
In Tibet, the difference of the temperature is great between day and night, even your visit be in June or July. Certain clothes such as sweater, down-filled coat etc. for keeping out cold are still necessary.
2) Sleeping bag
It is a necessary equipment for those who enter Tibet by bus or car, or who are ready to go out of Lhasa.
3) Camera
It is not necessary for ordinary people to have good cameras, because you and your friends may in the least have cameras with five inches photos for your good memory to record about the scenery in Tibet. (Please take more pictures to the beautiful landscapes of the mountains and water with some Tibetan folklores.)
4) Sunglasses
The ultraviolet radiation from the sun in Tibet is very strong. A pair of sunglasses can avoid your eyes from being spoilt by sunlight.
5) Sunstroke lotion
In the Tibetan Plateau the radiation of the sun is very strong. People in love of beauty should keep in mind to take sunstroke lotion, which is suitable to you, especially for women who have to add more lotion on your skin in case of sunburn.
6) Food and Beverage
You’d better prepare enough high-calorie food such as: cookies, chocolate and candies and enough drinking water. Traveling in Tibet, you should make ample preparations psychologically and materially in case of landslides or car accidents, which happen very often in Tibet.
Essential certificates
Besides certificates you usually have with you such as the ID card, student certificate, etc. that can be discounted at buying entrance tickets or bus tickets, another certificate you have to bring with you is the border certificate. At your visits to Miling, Metok and Zayul in Nyingtri area, or Purang in Ngari, or Yatung, Tingri, Mt. Qomolangma and Dam in Shigatse, the border certificates are all necassrary. Though you may get the border certificate in Lhasa or Shigatse, for some reasons, you may not get it so easily. You’d better have your border certificate ready to Tibet in advance in the city where you have registered as a permanent residence.
In addition, for travel to Nepal, you must have your passport with you. Visa can be obtained at Nepal Consulate in Beijing in advance or at Nepal Consulate in Lhasa after your arrival to Tibet. You can get your visa in these two places without an invitation letter. The visa fee can be charged in free with a long term of validity. When getting your visa in Lhasa, you need a copy of your passport and a one-inch photo. It will cost you 270 yuan for your visa and you will get it for 60 days. You will get your passport back in 3 days.
Visa application
First, you will get the form from Nepal Consulate in Lhasa, fill it immediately, and then hand it to officer in charge.
Visa fee
The visa office will give you back a receipt of the visa which is clearly written the date of issue.
You should go to Nepalese Consulate on time to get visa. The officer in charge will check your passport and the form on the spot. If everything is all right, you’ll get your visa with a stamp on it.
Notice: The working time of visa in the Nepal Consulate in Lhasa is from 11 am to half past 12 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Address: East Beijing Road, Lhasa
Telephone: 0891-6836890
Notice for foreign tourists
With the exception of tourists from Hong Kong and Macao, tourists from Taiwan province and foreign countries must follow the procedures below at visits to Tibet:
1) Passport and Visa
Tourists or mountaineers to Tibet must have passports issued in their own countries and visas issued by Chinese embassies, or consulates, in foreign countries, with the exception of travelers from those countries, which have agreements of visa exemption with China.
2) Identification cards
Before you plan to go into Tibet you must get in touch with a travel agency in Tibet and inform them your purpose of visit, date of arrival, your name, passport number, occupation, address, the present working institute, etc. You will get back your identification card from the travel agency in a very short time. Tibet Tourism Bureau has set up many agents in Beijing, Chengdu, Xian, Shanghai, Golmud, Hong Kong, Nepal, Japan and America in charge of organizing package tours and individual tours. Every travel agency in Tibet can help you to visit Tibet. Travelers from Hong Kong or Macao don’t need to transact the identification correspondences.
3) Tourists to Tibet from Chengdu, Xian, Chongqing, Golmud must buy air or bus tickets depending on their original identification correspondents. Tourists to Tibet from Kathmandu need the identification correspondences to their visas from Chinese Embassy in Nepal, and then you can buy air tickets.
4) Foreign currency can’t be directly used in Tibet. Traveler’s check and foreign cash can be exchanged in Bank of China. You can withdraw cash with a credit card in Bank of China. You may use a credit card in some star-level hotels to pay your accommodation.
Notice for photography
First and foremost, photographic equipments should be lightly packed. Tibet is short of oxygen because of high altitude. Therefore, with the exception of necessary equipments that can’t be simplified the rest should not be taken with you. With the strong rays in Tibet, the receiving light and the seamy sign of the scenery contrasts very differently. When taking a photo against the light, you may use flashlight for help. Taking a photo against the light, you have to pay attention to the brightness of the background and make proper exposures to fit it. Ultraviolet rays in Tibet is very strong, usually, you should put an ultraviolet filter to your lens which can avoid photos becoming purple in color.
The scenery in Tibet is splendid, blue sky with white clouds, snow-covered mountains with green grasslands, all this will make you feel excited. Taking photos in Tibet, you'd better choose the time before 9 in the morning or after 5 in the afternoon, the mould and color effects produced by the low angle of the sunlight will make the picture more attractive.