http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , China , Tibet en-us Sat, 05 Dec 09 06:02:36 +0000 Sat, 05 Dec 09 06:02:36 +0000 They have a saying in China that the only men who travel alone are pilgrims or madmen. Disagree if you will but I must be on some sort of pilgrimage then. Or perhaps I am a borderline maniac. By that I mean I am a maniac of borderlines. I can't get enough of fabled frontiers the wilder the better. Borders are the places where cultures clash and connect. Where clans go eyeball to eyeball breath http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Friendship-Highway/blog-456500.html Bis vor weniger als hundert Jahren war dieses durch den Himalaya vom Rest der Welt abgeschnittene buddhistische Hochland fr Jedermann Tabu. In der Hauptstadt Lhasa fhlt sich das Treppensteigen ausserdem an als htte ich die letzten 20 Jahre mit 4 Pckli Zigis pro Tag verbracht. Und dass soll erst der Anfang sein. Zuhause sehen wir sie berall. Die rotblaugelben FREE TIBET Sticker auf den Au http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-451266.html Vanuit Sakye een spannende dagtrip tegemoedhupsa de friendshiphiway af en 4 uur offroad bergop de Himalaya in. Aangekomen in het dorpje Rongbuk op 5800 meter hoogte heb je een uitzicht dat je nergens anders ter wereld hebtde MountEverest in zijn volle glorie dat is redelijk impressionant.Heel onze rugzak kleren boven elkaar aan en nog acht kilometer dichterbij gereden naar het Everest baseca http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Everest/blog-449499.html Rara wat is er in Sakya te zienJa een kloosterDus wij vanuit Shigatse met de Jeep naar daar over 2 schitterende passen de Tra Lapas van 4040 meter en vervolgens de hou u vast Yulung Lapas van 4950 meter tja wat hadden jullie gedacht dat uitzicht is ongeloofelijk heHet klooster te Sakya was een keer wat anders want het was vroeger een burcht en ze waren het aan het schilderen.Tof om t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Friendship-Highway/blog-449493.html Meine Reise zu den hchten Bergen dieser WeltEigentlich kann man Tibet nicht in einen Blogeintrag pressen und es ist schwierig nur anhand von einigen Fotos und meinem Gekritzel hier einen mglichst authentischen Eindruck zu liefern deshalb werde ich nur die wichtigsten Ereignisse schildern und versuchen die Bilder erzhlen zu lassen Ich kann jedoch behaupten dass es DIE Reise schlechthin war i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Everest/blog-448581.html Thng N259m n259m 2006 gi7919a ma h nh432ng n417i 273y v7851n c tuy7871t r417i v7851n ph7843i m7863c o khoc d7847y v c bnh xy 2737875 th7903 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Friendship-Highway/blog-448048.html 25909Started my journey to Nepal and again back on the highway 318 the SinoNepal highway. The road condition was pretty good and we travel along with the Yaluzangbu river again. The further we going upstream the river getting narrower and the scene were pretty much the same like anywhere in Tibet only the tibetan houses we seen were tradition flat roof. Shigatse3800m was the 2nd biggest c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-442014.html It is hard for me to even begin to explain how exited I was for today. One of my three life goals was to hike to base camp at Mount Everest and it was going to come true within hours. those of you who know me will know that I have lost over 65 kgs over the last seven or eight years and the driving force behind this was that I knew that a guy who weighs 150kg just cannot hike at that altitude. So h http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Everest/blog-439303.html Leaving Shigatse early in the morning we took off on a four hour drive to Sakya yet another monastery town. We soon climbed out of the valley that we had been in for the last two days and down into another very similar valley. The pass over the mountains granted a nice if not spectacular view. The main reason that I bring it up is that there is a guy there sellling fossils of sea creatues that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-439069.html 20909The road to Lhasa was super. the scene was the same all the way brownish mountain with no tree all around the Yaluzangbo river but surprisingly the effect was pretty as there was the important ingredient...blue sky and cotton cloud. After the Gongga airport some memories came back the rock craving by the road side but then approaching Lhasa river I was lost the Lhasa now was so big. W http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-439005.html The next town on our journey was Shigatse about an hour and a half down the road from Gyantse. It is in the same valley and so the entire time we were surrounded by fields of barley much like Gyantse. Since they are so close together and at a similar altitude like Gyantse most of the crops had been harvested and were drying in the fields.I guess that following the harvest it is adobe brick ma http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Shigatse/blog-438739.html Sometimes the destination is the highlight of a trip and sometimes it is the journey itself and when it comes to Gyantse the journey is certainly the highlight. Before leaving Lhasa Erin Maureen and I joined the hotel staff from the chefs in uniform to the manager in morning callesthenics. A little light stretching to the sounds of a tape of a woman singing out a cadence in Chinese is a grea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Gyantse/blog-438168.html 14909From Bayi I turned left travelled on the S306 2 days ago as I would like to see the Yaluzangbu river. The road was surprising good and new all the way through Milin2200m and ended at Langxian2200m . Both was rather new town with totally Han favour. Hair saloon ktv and bar only the exterior was in Tibetan colour. Met a chinese young couple on the bus and they invited me to visited http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-438095.html The first big test we faced upon arrival in Lhasa is the three hundred meter walk with your bags from the train to the bus that was taking us to our hotel. Now I know that this doesnt sound that hard but when you have jsut stepped out of an oxygen enriched environment to the thin air at 3600 meters it is not as easy as it sounds. I have been lucky enough that the altitude did not affect me much http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Lhasa/blog-438047.html Kham is found in the southeast region of the Tibetan Plateau. It covers nearly 900000 square kilometers and has a Tibetan population of over 2 million. Kham is spread across 4 provinces of China...the eastern area of the centrel Tibet TAR southern Qinghai western Sichuan and far northwest Yunnan.The western part of Kham consists more or less of what is now the Chamdo district of Tibetan Auton http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-437430.html Dear friend laWe are Tibetan Travel agency and Known as the Roof of the World the Qinghai Tibetan is a massive area nearly 14th the size of mainland. Its average altitude of over 4000 meters makes it known to many as the earthrsquos ldquothird polerdquo. The eternally snowcapped mountain ranges and vividly green grasslands dotted with high mountain lakes provide the natural setting for the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Kham/blog-437256.html Camping with Nomads on the GrasslandsThe grasslands of Tibet in the summer are amazing. They are bright green with many wildflowers mixed in with mountains in the distance. Many nomads are actually only seminomadic. Many live in a mudbrick home during the winter months and then live in tents from late spring through early fall. Nomad tents can often be found across the sprawling grasslands of Ti http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Kham/blog-437254.html Leaving Beijing was quite a sad experience for me beyond the most obvious of reasons as I had to get on a train for 45 hours with a new group of people. Not that the new group didn't seem interesting but I had just shared so many experiences with Verena Robin Sarah Raul and the rest that it somehow seemed that I was cheating on a girlfriend to go on a long train ride with other people. There http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/blog-436315.html Saying Goodbye to TibetAfter a late night filled with fiery political discussions and warm beer our week of exploring Lhasa and Mt. Everest was technically coming to a close. All but three of us are leaving in the morning so the evening was filled with hearing what others enjoyed or hated about our adventure swapping emails passionate ideas on why the European Union will never work all while e http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Lhasa/blog-435843.html Mt. Everest Base Camp Day 3We ended up getting to our hotel late last night about 1030 after a decent meal in Shigatse Tibet. Even though we didn't get to see Mt. Everest up close yesterday on our way back to the closest town we did get to spend about forty minutes watching the top 13 of the mountain appear and then fade away and then appear again as cloud formations slowly passed over the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Everest/blog-433984.html