Tibet Trip Planning

Tibet Trip Planning

20 September 2010

Shanghai, China

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Apart from a weariness about group tours in general, I was reminded today of how fun planning stuff for a group of people you don’t know well can be. Even though we’ve already bought expensive one-way tickets to Lhasa, the number of people changed twice today, including a guy bailing complaining about a minor price variance --- a guy who works at a prestigious consulting firm in his real life and was recently overhead boasting that a Japan trip was fine as long as it “wasn’t more than 5,000 Euros.” Oh, the joys of planning travel for near strangers.

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The frustrations planning a trip to Tibet are many. First of all, the economy class tickets cost 2760 Renminbi. No deals. No early bird specials. No student rate. Each leg to Tibet simply costs about $400. You pay or you take the train. When the economy tickets run out, you can pay about double to fly first class. These prices haven’t changed since my old China Let’s Go guide was printed in 2004. How’s that for economic planning?

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The second frustration is that you can only travel in Tibet on an organized tour. The good news is that the norm is private tours, for which you have a small group and a car, driver, and guide, and you go on an itinerary of your choice. The bad news is that the devils in the details. Somehow we went unknowingly from a Land Cruiser chariot to some sort of minivan, but Tibet will still be Tibet…

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The group, however, albeit mostly unknown, seems to be a good group. It includes six exchange students at CEIBS from [xx] different schools, including London Business School and Wharton. Everyone seems like they’ll be fun to get to know, and it’s a good thing, because the train back from Lhasa to Shanghai takes 51 hours. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who loves trains. This fall that is being put to the test.

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We are using a tour agency called Access Tibet Tours and here is our itinerary:

Calendar	Transportation	Distance for driving/km	Program	Accommodation
2010-9-28	Arrive in Lhasa	70	Airport pick up	Cool Yak Hotel
2010-9-29	Lhasa City Tour	80	Jokhang temple/Potala palace/Drepung monastery	Cool Yak Hotel
2010-9-30	Lhasa-Ganden monastery-Lhasa	130	Ganden monastery, Drak yerpa	Cool yak Hotel
2010-10-1	Lhasa-Yamdrok lake-Lhasa	250	Karola glacier/yamdrok lake/ Visit a Tibetan family on the way	Cool Yak hotel
2010-10-2	Lhasa city tour	80	Sera monastery/ Ani Sangkhung Nunnery tea house/ a short hiking into Tibet nature	Cool yak hotel
2010-10-3	Lhasa- Namtso lake	250	Namtso lake, Yampachen hot spring	Tent or local guesthouse
2010-10-4	Namtso lake-Lhasa	250	Shot the sunrise of Namtso lake	Cool Yak Hotel
2010-10-5	Take train to Shanghai	30	Airport transfer

A: The suggested itinerary based on 6 PAX is RMB 4645 (equal to US$693) per person. It is based on 2 Four Wheel drive vehicles.

B: The suggested itinerary based on 6 PAX is RMB 3858 (equal to US$576) per person. It is based on 1 Minivan

Now your mind might be racing with all sorts of questions about these places… mine certainly is. It’s also racing thinking about what sorts of new birds I can see in Tibet…