9 Days Everest & North Tibet Grassland Loop Small Group Tour

Day 1Arrive in Lhasa — rest and acclimatise

Your guide meets you at Lhasa Gonggar Airport or the railway station and drives you to the hotel. The rest of the day is free: drink water, walk slowly, and let your body get used to 3,650 m. Lhasa hotel.

Meals: none

Day 2Tibet Museum · Nanshan Park · Jokhang Temple · Barkhor Street

The Tibet Museum in the morning is the best short introduction to the land and its people. From Nanshan Park on the south side of the city you look across the river to the Potala Palace. In the afternoon, the Jokhang Temple, the holiest temple in Tibet, and a walk around the Barkhor with the pilgrims. Lhasa hotel.

Meals: breakfast

Day 3Potala Palace · Sera Monastery monk debate · a Tibetan family

The Potala Palace in the morning, on the timed ticket your guide has booked. After lunch, the monks' debate in the courtyard of Sera Monastery (daily except Sundays, 3–5 pm). In the evening you visit a local family for butter tea, tsampa and conversation, with your guide translating. Lhasa hotel.

Meals: breakfast, dinner

Day 4Gampala Pass · Yamdrok Lake · Karola Glacier · Gyantse · Shigatse

An early start south from Lhasa. The road climbs to the Gampala Pass (4,794 m), and from the top Yamdrok Lake, one of the three holy lakes of Tibet, lies below you in a long curve of turquoise. Today the group does not turn back here: the road goes on west past the Karola Glacier, close enough to the highway to feel its cold, and reaches Gyantse early in the afternoon.

Gyantse's Kumbum, built between 1427 and 1439, is a nine-storey stupa with 77 chapels, one above the other like a mandala in three dimensions; give it an hour. The day ends in Shigatse, Tibet's second city, for the night.

Meals: breakfast

Day 5Drive west · Gyawula Pass five-peak view · night at Rongbuk

After breakfast the group drives west. There is no monastery this morning; the day belongs to the road. It climbs to the Gyawula Pass, and when the sky is clear — it often is — five of the world's highest peaks stand in one line in front of you: Cho Oyu, Gyachung Kang, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu, all above 7,900 m, from one spot on the road.

The group reaches the Rongbuk guesthouse (4,980 m) in the late afternoon, with the north face of Everest filling the view from the door. In the last light the summit turns gold. Bring warm layers: the night is cold and full of stars.

Meals: breakfast

Day 6Everest Base Camp sunrise · Sakya Monastery · back to Shigatse

Up before dawn for the 20-minute walk on flat ground from the guesthouse to Everest Base Camp (5,200 m). The first light on the north face, before the clouds build, is the clearest of the day; take as long as you like. After a simple breakfast the group drives east on a different road from the one it came by.

The way back passes Sakya Monastery, founded in 1073 and for two centuries the ruling power of Tibet; you know it at once by its walls striped grey, white and red. Inside is one of the largest collections of old Tibetan manuscripts anywhere. On to Shigatse for the night.

Meals: breakfast

Day 7Tashilhunpo Monastery · north over the Shogula and Dongula passes · Yangpachen hot springs · night in Damxung

The morning is for Tashilhunpo Monastery, founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama and the seat of the Panchen Lamas since, with the 26-metre gilded statue of the future Buddha, the tombs of past Panchen Lamas and the courtyards where the monks live and study. After lunch in Shigatse the group turns north on the road that turns this tour into a loop.

The road climbs over the Shogula Pass and then the Dongula Pass, the ranges that divide the Brahmaputra valley from the North Tibet Grassland. On the far side the land changes: rolling grass, nomad tents, yak herds and a sky that seems to take up more than half of everything. In the early evening you reach the Yangpachen hot springs, white steam rising straight out of the plateau with blue mountains behind — worth stepping out for. Night in Damxung (about 4,300 m).

Meals: breakfast, lunch

Day 8Namtso Lake · lunch · back to Lhasa by expressway

From Damxung the lake is 45 minutes away. It appears all at once as the road tops a low ridge: turquoise water to the horizon and the Nyenchen Tanglha peaks rising straight from the far shore, their snow in the water. Namtso sits at 4,718 m, the highest saltwater lake in the world and one of the three holy lakes of Tibet; pilgrims walk around it in several days. The group has the morning on the shore.

After lunch by the lake the group drives south on the Lhasa–Damxung expressway, through a long tunnel under the range and down into the Lhasa valley, about two hours. A free evening in Lhasa. Lhasa hotel.

Meals: breakfast, lunch

Day 9Lhasa departure

Breakfast, then your guide takes you to the airport or railway station in time for your flight or train. If you leave in the afternoon there is time for one last hour on Barkhor Street.

Meals: breakfast