Route to Tibet

Date: 13/6/2010
County: Tibet, China
Remarks: Routes to Tibet, Hong Kong to Tibet

Tibet has always been my dream place to go. As a hongkonger, we are very lucky that we need not to apply visa and can go there whenever we can. So here I came, in summer 2010.

Worried about the high altitude sickness, we decided to first get to Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, with an average altitude of 2,200 meters, for sometime to adopt to the high altitude before heading Tibet. We took 6.5-hour flight from Shenzhen to Xining, stayed for 2 days before renting a car to Lhasa of Tibet. The car ride from Xining to Lhasa took around 5 days and we passed via Qinghai Lake 青海湖, Chaka Salt Lake 茶卡鹽湖, Geermu 格爾木, Kunlun Mountain 崑崙山, Tanggula Shan 唐古拉山 and Namucuo 納木錯, and finally arrived Lhasa, with an average elevation of 4,900 metres.

The car ride was an expensive one. We rented one near the train station in Xining. There were lots of travel agents near the train station and it costed from RMB6,000 to 16,000 to go from  Xinan to Lhasa for vehicles from ordinary RV to 4-wheel drive. They asked RMB6000-8000 for RV, RMB12,000 for MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicle) and RMB16,000 for a 4-wheel drive. We eventually got a MPV at $9,000 (incl 2 drivers). I guess this is the price we have to pay during peak season. There is indeed an cheaper alternative of taking the Qinghai-Tibet Railway 青藏鐵路 but they eventually decided to rent a car so that we could stop at all the scenic spots on the way.