Tibet Travel Forum

What about going overland from Zhongdian to Lhasa in a rented Landcruiser? Is it possible now? With Driver and guide of course.
I plan to do that in April 2009.
Has anyone done it in the last few weeks? Or planning to do it next time?
Thanks!

Spoerle

The is a bookmark to see what other responses are and also give you a little info about my experience.

I attempted to do this in May/June 2006 but had to turn back because a rock slide took out a road. Arrangements could be made at the TTB (Tibetan Tourist Board) in Zhongdian back then. I don't know about now, with this year's earthquake and political things in Tibet. I also heard the train tracks were recently damage by a more recent earth quake. I believe you can fly into Lhasa now.

Back then, I not only needed a permit for Lhasa, but also permits for the overland part. There were talks about removing some of these requirements but the political events earlier this year may have prevented this. There is a humorous youtube video of two guys going overland on a public bus last year. It was illegal to do that. I'll find the link and post it here if you like.

I have some photos on my Tibet and Lhasa pages. My third travel log on the Tibet pages talks about some of the problems I had. But I have more to post and have not yet added the part where the TTB said my permits were fake and fined the driver 2000 rmb.

All in all, it was a great experience and I recommend it even with all the problems I had. I would like to do it again some day, this time without having to turn back. Many of the roads were horrible but I could see they were building new roads and tunnels.

As a side note, driving in helps you get use to the altitude because you go up and down over the mountains passes. I got up to over 5008 meters without any problems. My friend was having problems every time we went over 4000 meters but got use to it over time and had no problems when we hit 5000.

Hello Spoerle

There are some tourists want to join the tour at April, if you are interesting in this trip overland from Yunnan to Lhasa, you can contact with us www.accesstibettour.come

Christina