Tibet Travel Forum

We plan to take the train from central China to Lhasa in mid August, spend a day or two in Lhasa, and then take the Friendship Highway and cross the border into Nepal. We only have 3-4 days to get from Lhasa to the Friendship Bridge as our Chinese visas will be nearly expired.

Given that you need to be on a tour to get a permit, how possible is this plan? Could we, for example, organise a one day tour in Lhasa to get the permits, and then travel independently with a driver to Nepal?

Sounds way too optimistic.

You can technically get from Lhasa to Kathmandu in 3 days but that would require a lot of driving and risky. The roads on the friendship highway arent so friendly. They are constantly under construction and a lot of Chinese red tape will prevent you from passing through small po-dunk towns for maybe 1 to 8 hours. I agree with the girl, that is way too optimistic. We did the train from Beijing to Lhasa and then a 6-7 day overland tour through Tibet. However, if you want to bypass all the monasteries and stuff and just get through a quick tour I am sure you can find a tour that works like that. Most of the drivers are free lancers and they have their own land cruisers taking you to your destination. YOu pretty much need a driver and chaperone for the tour. It's not actually a "tour" per se. Anyways, I would do some more homework with other travel forums. I definitely DO NOT recommend Heian Treks. They mismanaged our trip, were late to our pick up in Lhasa and just completely misled us in our payments. It was a mess so please do your due diligence prior to committing. Also, bargain like a bastard - tourist season is just beginning to start in China so get the good while the gettings good. Cheers.