Have you considered a tour in the Tibetan areas of Amdo and Kham?

Where to go in Tibet?

Tibet: Which area to go to? I often receive emails from people asking which area of Tibet they should travel to. This is a difficult question to answer since in my opinion, all regions of the Tibetan Plateau are amazing. In this post, I will list some of my favorite areas in all of the main regions of the Tibetan Plateau: Amdo, Kham and U-Tsang (Central Tibet). Picture above is of the holy mountain of Amnye Machen ཨ་མྱེས་རྨ་ཆེན་ in Golok Prefecture in  Amdo. Amdo ཨ༌མདོ་ The Amdo region is home to over 1.6 million Tibetans, or roughly 30% of the Tibetan population, and covers an area slightly smaller than France (these figures include the Gyarong Tibetan areas as well) . Amdo Tibetans are found in 6 Tibetan autonomous prefectures in Qinghai, 1 prefecture in Sichuan, 1 prefecture in Gansu and one small autonomous county in Gansu. If you think of Tibet as rolling grasslands filled with yaks and nomadic herders on horseback, then Amdo is probably ...

Tibet Travel Guides & Books

Guidebooks for Tibet There are many good guidebooks on Tibet. If you plan on being in in Lhasa and theTibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Lonely Planet's Tibet guidebook is the best option. It is well written, easy to understand and has the most reliable information for this area of Tibet. In addition to the TAR, Lonely Planet's Tibet also covers most of Kham except for the areas found in Qinghai and Yunnan. It does not cover any of Amdo. The best guidebook for the Amdo and  Kham regions of Tibet is the Footprints Tibet Handbook written by Tibet scholar Gyurme Dorje. Though it is big, it covers all areas of Tibet including every county on the Tibetan Plateau. The only problem with it is that it often uses Tibetan place names that have either changed or are only known by the local villagers which can cause problems trying to reach really remote areas. Another good guidebook choice for Amdo and Kham is Lonely Planet's China Guidebook. It covers the Kham ...

Important: 2013 Travel Permits and Scheduling

In Tibet Highland Tour's continued effort to let potential Tibet travelers know the situation on travel permits throughout the 2013 travel season, we have a quick update pertaining to travel permits in the first part of this year Starting April 1st, 2013 we will start booking tours and issuing permits to enter into the Tibetan Autonomous Region. This is a scheduled 'break' that happens every year in Tibetan regions that coincides with Tibetan New Years. Have you considered a tour in the Tibetan areas of Amdo and Kham? During this TAR permit hiatus until the end of March 2013--and all year around--we are pleased to guide breathtaking experiences to Tibetan areas in Amdo & Kham. Many of these areas in Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Yunnan are truly “hidden gems” and offer authentic Tibetan experiences, unparalleled natural landscapes, and flexible scheduling. Please feel free to contact us during this time for future tours. Thanks so much! Tenzin

Merry Christmas from all of us at Tibet Highland Tours

Though we are all busy here planning lots and lots of tours on the Tibetan plateau, we wanted to take a moment and wish all of our past and future customers a very Merry Christmas!

The Best Time to visit Tibet

Best time to visit Tibet One of the most common questions I am asked is when is the best time to visit Tibet? Well, that is a bit difficult to answer because there are pro's and con's to each season. What I will do is take each season and list the pro's and con's about them to help you decide when the best time is for you to visit the Land of Snows. Summer The summer season is the warmest time of year across the Tibetan Plateau. While it is still common for snow to fall on the northern Tibetan Plateau during the summer, especially in areas above 4000m, most places where travelers go to are mild and comfortable. Because of the mild temperatures across Tibet during the summer, this is the most popular time of year for travelers to come. Since the start of the train to Tibet in 2006, tourists numbers have increased nearly every year (exception was in 2008 when widespread riots ...

By Losang – Yading Nature Reserve

Original Article from: kekexili.typepad.com Yading Nature Reserve The Yading Nature Reserve is found in western Sichuan’s Ganzi Tibet Autonomous Prefecture དཀར་མཛེས་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་ in the traditional Tibetan region of Kham ཁམས་. Ganzi, known in Tibetan as Garnze དཀར་མཛེས་, is divided into 18 counties covering an area of 151,000 square kilometers (58,300 square miles). Yading is located in southern Daocheng county, which is known as Dapba འདབ་པ་ in Tibetan. The Yading Nature Reserve covers an area of 1344 square kilometers (520 square miles) and has an average elevation of well over 4000 meters. Inside the Yading Nature Reserve are the 3 holy mountains of Chenresig, rising to 6032 meters, Chana Dorje and Jampelyang, which both rise to 5958 meters. These 3 snow-capped peaks sit in a triangle formation with forested valleys, clear rivers, glacier-fed lakes and abundant wildlife between them. The Tibetan name for Yading is “Nyiden” ཉིན་རྟེན་, which means “facing the sun”.  The local Tibetan name for the area around the 3 holy mountains is “Rigsum Gonpo”. In ...

Saga Dawa Festival 2011 June 15th

There are several pivotal events in the Buddha’s life that Buddhists celebrate, including his birth, his enlightenment, his first sermon, and his death and release into nirvana. Saga Dawa means ‘fourth month’, and it is on the 15th day of this month on the Tibetan calendar that Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhists celebrate both his birth and the day when he died and attained Nirvana.Religious observance is influenced and shaped by the culture in which it is practised. During Saga Dawa, people flock to villages and monasteries turning their prayer wheels and singing and dancing. It is also a festival of light, where butter lamps abound. Although picnics are common, as a day of strict Buddhist observance no meat is allowed.One of the main places of pilgrimage is Mt Kailash, where participants meditate and perform parikrama (circumambulation) around the holy mountain. Mt Kailash, located in the far west of Tibet, is sacred to four great Asian religions—Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and ...

Tibetan HipHOp (Mila Rapper)

Lonely Planet Latest Edition 2011  Page 74  (Mila Rapper but Not Milarepa ) Mc Tenzin  ,The first Tibetan Hiphop has been released in Tibet  in 2010 at Tibetan new year. Mc Tenzin's Music is all about Buddhism and influence of Rapping skills like Eminem and story teller like Tupac  the Makaveli and  so hope people like it..Check ..    www.myspace.com/tibetanhiphopmctenzin    or www.myspace.cn/mctenzin  

Sertar & Larung Gar

Though I have lived and traveled across the Tibetan Plateau for nearly 9 years, there are still a few places I have not been to yet. One of those places was Sertar. I was finally able to visit Sertar last week and I was not disappointed. Sertar གསེར་ཐར་, also spelled Sertal, Serda and Seda, is a remote county found in Garnze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture. Though most of Garnze Prefecture དཀར་མཛེས་ཁུལ་ is considered to be the traditional Tibetan region of Kham, Sertar is technically an Amdo speaking area. It was considered to be part of the Golok region for many centuries. Sertar is remote, difficult to reach and is often closed to foreign travelers. The main attraction in this high altitude, nomadic region is the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute. It is the largest Buddhist Institute on the Tibetan Plateau with between 40,000 and 50,000 monks, nuns and lay students. In the late 19th century, the site was home to a small Nyingma sect hermitage. ...