Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal. If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:
- Road trip on the Himalayan Shelf
- Lhasa: City of Sunlight, City in the Sky
- In Tibet, People’s Liberation Army (mostly) out of site, but not out of mind
- Attn: Crayola — a new color for you — Tibetan Blue
- Tibetan Cloudscapes
- Tibetan Prayer Flags Littering Roof of the World
- Should you pay for photos? The ethics of travel photography
- 29 Minutes and 15 Seconds on Mount Everest
- Desertification stretching from Inner Mongolia to Tibet
- ‘The journey not the arrival matters’
- Namaste and welcome to Nepal
- Kathmandu: The greatest place on earth to get lost
- Kathmandu: Full of mystery, culture, history — and trash
- ‘A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles’
- Who has the strongest necks in the world?
- Hey hey, they’re some monkeys
- After the Himalayan: The Terai
- Watch where you step: Chitwan National Park
- At the end of the road: Pokhara
- Final Destination 8 (in 3D): The luckiest travelers in the world
- Tibet to Nepal: ‘The Journey Not the Arrival Matters’
The after effects of the 2008 Tibetan riots as well as a student demonstration at the foot of Mount Everest in 2007 can still be seen in Lhasa and beyond. Since the demonstration in 2007, travel restrictions have been imposed on foreigners making things very difficult and expensive for travelers. Friend Jeff Lune of Lune Tours helped arrange my permits but the long story, short is: if you plan to leave Lhasa you will need multiple permits as well as both a driver and guide.
However, the effects of the uprisings go much further than making arrangements difficult for foreigners. Military check points, roadblocks and soldiers paint the colorful Tibetan landscape.
Sometimes this is a strange visual juxtaposition. Here is one example. On one block in Lhasa, a man bows his head against a wall of Tibetan prayer flags, praying peacefully. He is surrounded by monks, pilgrims and Chinese tourists most of whom are all praying as well.
Across the street a group of Tibetan woman dance and sing on the roof of a building, chanting songs and prayers. The rhythmic stomping of their feet and their distance voices make a peaceful ambiance in the street below.
However, on a third corner — the presence of the People’s Liberation Army hides, peering down from the roof of a building. Ironically, this soldier watches the religious population of Lhasa in front of Tibetan Prayer Flags. Soldiers perched on buildings can be seen throughout Lhasa and beyond.
While its always strange to see soldiers and guns in an area that appears peaceful — there has been a long history of violence and riots in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the surrounding areas including Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan Provinces.
The thing I can’t figure out is if the soldiers presence actually preemptively stops uprisings or are if they are just there as a reminder to the Tibetans to who is in charge? It might also be important to ask if there would be any uprisings anyway?
Tibet travel realities
There are two main permits travelers need in Tibet: a PSB Permit (Alien Travel Permit) and a TTB Permit (Tibet Entry Permit). The PSB is only needed if travelers intend to leave Lhasa into the “restricted” zones — from which I can tell, is anyplace in Tibet that is not Lhasa. Of course, you also need a Chinese visa to be in Tibet as well. An additional permit is needed for Mount Everest.
Beyond these permits, small details still exist. Travelers are not aloud to retain their permits on their person. Instead, a guide must both accompany and retain the legal documents during travel. Check this link out, for a simple explanation of this process.
