Customized treks and climbs to common and less
Travelled trails and peaks in Nepal, Tibet and Ladakh

Since Tibet was opened for outsiders Kathmandu has become the major gateways to enter Tibet for the large number of tourists. Nepali tour operators and staff perform the services in more professional manner and it's actually cheaper and easier for any tours in Tibet specially in Mt. Kailash, Mt. Everest and Lhasa area. Thus Kathmandu has become the base to operate tourist activities in Tibet.

Since 1965, Tibet has been administered as an autonomous region of China. The region is divided into five prefectures viz. Ngari, Shigatse, Shannan, Nagqu, Chamdo and 71 counties with Lhasa considered a municipality. The old provinces of Amdo and Kham have been divided up into Qinghai province and autonomous prefectures in Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. The most important bodies, effectively in charge of Tibet, are the Communist Party Committee and the People’s Government.

The population of Tibet is very difficult to determine exactly owing to the current partition of Tibet into five diverse Chinese provinces and the number of many nomadic peoples which is largely unaccounted for, but it is roughly estimated to be around 6 million- excluding the Tibetan community in exile in India, Nepal and around the world- suggesting that they comprise about 48% of the plateau’s population. Of the remainder, the majority are accounted for by the recent rapid influx of Chinese from Sichuan and other provinces of mainland China into urban areas of Tibet.

The majority of the population makes their living from farming or herding and all are involved in trade of one form or another. Their racial origins are unsure but they are generally believed to be of the Burmo-Tibetan group like most peoples of the eastern Himalaya, such as the Bhutanese and Sikkimese.

According to Tibetan sources, Tibetans are now a minority in their own country and with the continuing immigration of Chinese, the percentage of ethnic Tibetans is dropping. However, the Chinese statistics claim that more than 94% of the inhabitants in the Tibetan Autonomous Region are Tibetan.

Religion is an integral part of everyday life in Tibet and is the backbone of the culture which had remained, until 1959, virtually unchanged. Religion and the State were inseparable and while politics have changed this, they have not altered the way in which every aspect of daily life in Tibet, from harvesting crops and selling yaks to naming children, is governed by traditions. The Tibetan culture is rich and very much alive and provides immeasurable strength to a people who exist happily in one of the most forbidding environments in the world.

Almost as large as Western Europe in area, Tibet- also known as the ‘Roof of the World’- has borders with India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Myanmar. The northern plateau of Tibet is called Chang Thang, a rocky, arid desert stretching 1300km from west to east at an average altitude of 4000 metres and comprising nearly half of the country. It is bounded to the north by the Kunlun and Tanggula mountains beyond which lies the Qaidam basin; to the west a barrier is formed by the Karakoram and Great Himalaya mountain ranges. Its wild vastness holds the source of some of the world’s greatest rivers- the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej and the Karnali which feeds the Ganges. The Chang Thang has no river systems; merely salt lakes which are the remnants of Tethys Sea which covered Asia Minor some 100 million years ago. Apart from some areas in far eastern and south eastern Tibet, which receive a little of the monsoon from May onwards, Tibet is mostly dry and dusty.
Average altitude: little under 4000 metres. Jiachan at 15,870 ft (4800m) is believed to be the highest inhabited town on earth.

Tibetan is classified as part of the Tibeto-Burmese language group within the Sino-Tibetan language family. Although there are many regional dialects and sub dialects, they are mutually intelligible. The Lhasa dialect is considered the lingua franca and has two distinct, social levels of speech-ordinary and honorific-but the honorific form is now falling into disuse. Tibetan scripts are based on the Sanskrit alphabet. There are four types of script: two for general use, one for Buddhist textbooks, and one for ornamental use. Tibetan is still the language most commonly spoken in Tibet, although in Lhasa many Tibetans, from necessity, speak Mandarin Chinese, the country’s official language. Many signs, buses, ticket offices, menus, etc. show only Chinese characters. Few Tibetans speak English and whilst the Chinese staff at the hotels and government offices speak some English it is always better to go through your Tibetan guide. When out of the cities, your guide will generally be able to communicate with the locals for you.

The conditions of the trip in remote areas are not that smooth and you have to be prepared psychologically for them. Road: You are driving on a very dry and dusty plateau and many times the dust from outside will be so thick that you cannot open the windows. However the road is beautiful and very spectacular and is definitely worth the aggravations. Food: In our package trips to Tibet, we provide full board meal (3 times a day) in camping section of the trip. If the trip accommodation is based in teahouses / hotels we include the service as bed and breakfast. In camping trips, our cook trained in cooking high altitude meals prepares the food. Our food supply is combined with advance stock from Kathmandu and local products. Water: Plenty of drinking water (purified / boiled) is provided in camping trip. If you are in teahouse / hotel based trip you should buy water from shops / hotels or carry purification pills. Sleep: In camping trips, we provide very specious roomy tents which can be used for single or double clients. Foamed, insulated mattress is provided for bed. Our package trip based in bed / breakfast includes overnight stays in descent tourist guest houses and middle range hotels where available.

Materials that will be confiscated include Tibetan National Flags (Big No-No), Dalai Lama pictures, Free Tibet t-shirts, and other such items that are all easily available in Nepal.