China Travel Forum

[Gladys Halley]

As I already got a lot of helpful hints in the past, I am relying on this

community one more time !

I am -vaguely- planning to go to Tibet in October.

How can I organize this from Europe ??? I would like to fly to China and

then take the marvellous Tibet railway to Lhasa.

How will I be able to book seats/beds....how will I get the "permits"...?

The hotel seems not to be the fact- the main thing seems to be, how to

book train tickets (reliable) in advance by some months !

what about "high altitude sickness" ?

[harrepote]

I called one of the ticket-offices here to be told that the tickets only be

offered 10 days early, so I'm afraid that you can not book it so early.

Just after you arrive Beijing or find a friend to book it for you then. And

the tickets around October is not so easy to get since it's during the

National holiday.

My two foreign friends who got there before told that there needn't a

permit for that, but travel agencies give me the opposite answer.

I think there are many others threads about traveling to Tibet, use search

to get more information.

[Susanna15]

As I have suggested on here a few times.
If you want to experience anon-commercialized, genuine Tibetan area,that is very easy to get to and takes a land route so you can acclimatize to the high altitude gradually and does not require any special permits; come to Chengdu, then take a 6 and half hour bus ride to Kangding and a further 2-3 hour Jeep or motorcycle tour to here.

Slightly off on a tangent, does anyone know anything about needing an invitation letter to buy a train ticket to Lhasa(I'm in Chengdu right now)?

Iwent to the train station to buy the ticket (at 4am), but they wouldn't sell me one because I didn't have an invitation letter.