Day 1：Arrive in Lhasa.

When you arrive in Lhasa (3700m), your local Tibetan guide and driver will bring you to hotel and rest at hotel for acclimatization.

Day 2: Visit Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple in the morning and Bakhor Street after noon

.In the morning, your guide will bring you to visit the huge and magnificent complex of ancient buildings, breathtaking Potala Palace, which is the winter palace of the Dalai Lama, built in the 17th century by the fifth Dalai Lama. After that, we explore the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred monastery in Tibet, and the surrounding Barkhor bazaar, the bustling Lhasa market.

Day 3: visit Drepung Monastery in the morning and Sera Monastery in the afternoon.

In the morning, we go to explore the expansive Drepung Monastery which is the largest monastery in Tibet and the home monastery to all Dalai Lamas. We go to Sera Monastery to watch the special monks’ debate In the afternoon, the Monastery has a rich collection of cultural relics and a silk tangkha painting of Sakya Yeshe.

Day4: Lhasa-Gyangtse-Shigatse on the way you can pass the Yamdrok Lake,karola,Kumbum.

On this day, we drive to Yamdrok Lake as the first stop of the day, the sparkling turquoise lake, for photos. Yamdrok Lake is located at the Nagartse County of Shannan Region some 110 kilometers to the southwest of Lhasa, and it is the largest inland lake on the northern range of the Himalayas. After that, on the way to Gyantse we cross Kampa-la (5050 m) and Karo-la Pass (5045 m) to view the Mt. Nojin Kangtsen Glacier falling down near the road. When we arrive at Gyantse (3950m), we will visit the Pelkor Chode Monastery. Also, we will also visit the Gyantse Dzong (fort) overlooking Gyangste, famous for the British military siege led by Colonel Younghusband in 1903.

Day5: visit Tashihunpo and Sakya monastery.

Today, we are going to visit the Tashilhunpo Monastery, to see the future Buddha’s golden shrine. The Tashilhunpo Monastery is the seat of the Panchen Lama, the 2nd highest in the Tibetan Buddhist religious hierarchy and one of the six great monasteries of the Gelugpa sect. We are also going to visit Sakya monastery which was originally regarded as the main monastery of the Sakya Sect. The monastery began to take on a political dimension in the 13th century when Sakya’s forth ruling lama.

Day6: Sakya to Everest Base Camp and Rongbuk.

On the way to Everest Base Camp, we will cross the Gawu-la Pass (5200m) and you can see the 4 mountains which above 8,000 meters, such as Mt. Lhotse (8516m), Mt. Everest (8848m), Mt. Cho-oyo (8201m), and Mt. Makalu (8463m). After that, we will go to visit Rongbuk Monastery which is the highest monastery in the world, 4km from Everest Basecamp. The 100km drive takes approximately 4 hours due to unpaved roads.

Day7: Everest Base Camp to the Zhangmu.

Today, we are going to Zhangmu, crossing over Lalung-la Pass at (5,050m) and Nyalam Pass (3,800m), taking in beautiful panoramas of the Himalayan Range including the Mt. Everest (8,848m).The drive from Everest Base Camp to Zhangmu (Chinese border) will take us about 8 hours.

Day8: Zhangmu to the Nepali border.

On the final day, your guide and driver will accompany with you to the Friendship Bridge, and here you will cross the Friendship Bridge on foot. Your Nepal agency car will transport to Kathmandu (approximately 4 hours, 150km) if you have already contact with them.

Please see the detail information about what are included in this tour package:

This tour package includes all of your Tibet Entry Permits which you need for traveling around Tibet (Tibet Permits).

Transportation

Transfer fee: transfer fee from airport or train station to Lhasa and from Lhasa to airport or train station (land cruiser or mini bus),and transfer fee of traveling to the places which are listed in your itinerary.

Admission fee:admission fee of all tourist sites which are listed in your itinerary.

Tour guide: English speaking local Tibetan guide with national guide license.

Hotels: clean and comfortable 3 star hotel with sharing twin room accommodation when your stay in Lhasa,Shanna, Shigatse and hotels in other places list in the itinerary (The conditions of hotels in some remote places, such as Sakya, Everest Base Camp, Tingri, and Zhangmu are not as good as hotels in some major cities of Tibet.

Our agency service charge:salary of driver, tour guide, vehicle.

Oxygen:supplied in your car and mineral water.

Meals:breakfast is included in your tour package.

Travel insurance:please be aware that travel insurance in here is very limited. Hence, our agency highly recommends our customers buy their travel insurance in their own countries before you come to Tibet, and most of tourists also do so.

Please see the detail information about what are excluded in this tour package:

International Travel Insurance:International Travel Insurance is not included in our tour package (we highly recommend you to buy international travel insurance which covers tour cancellation & emergency evacuation from your own country before you come to Tibet since the Tourist Accident & Casualty insurance which provided by travel agency in here is very limited.

Meals: Lunch and dinner are not included in your tour package.

Flight and train tickets: the costs of Flight and train tickets are not included in your tour package.

Potala Palace

Potala Palace is located on the Red Hill in the northwest of Lhasa. And it is a famous architectural complex made up of palaces, castles and temples which are the essence of Tibetan ancient architectural art.The Potala Palace was built in the seventh century. A palace of 999 rooms, it was built at an altitude of over 3,700 meters on the Red Hill of Lhasa. The palace, which was built on the hill, now covers 410,000 square meters and its architecture area is 130,000 square kilometers. The main building of the palace has 13 floors and is 115 meters high. It is all stone-wood structure. All the five roofs of palace are covered by gold-plating brasses tiles. It is the essence of Tibetan ancient architecture art.The main structure of Potala Palace is the White Palace and the Red Palace. The White Palace is the Winter Palace of Dalai Lama. It also used to be the past Tibet local government office. There are seven storeys in this building. Tsoqinsha Hall is located on the centre of the fourth floor. It is the largest palace in the Potala Palace White House, whose area is 717 square meters. And it is the place to hold important religious and political activities such as Dalai Lama enthrones and attends grand ceremonies. Rooms on the fifth and sixth floors are for the regent to work and live. The seventh floor, on the top of the White Palace, has two living rooms for Dalai Lama during the winter. Because of the sunny weather all day, they are called East Sunlight Hall and West Sunlight Hall, respectively. The Red Palace, mainly consisting of the chapels for Dalai Lamas’ stupas and all kinds of Buddhist chapels, contains eight stupas which keep the relics of past Dalai Lamas. Among them, the stupa for fifth Dalai Lama is the biggest. In the west is great west hall, the memorial hall of the stupa for fifth Dalai Lama Hall. It is also the biggest hall in the Potala Palace, which covers an area of 725 square meters and there are all frescoes on its inner walls. The thirteenth Dalai Lama’s tomb stupa temple is the latest building in the Potala Palace, which starting in 1933, costing 3 years to be built. During more than 1,300 years, the Potala Palace has collected extremely rich historical and cultural relics and kept them in storage. Among them, there are murals of more than 2,500 square meters, nearly a thousand stupas, tens of thousands of statues and Thangkha (scroll paintings); also, there are valuable scriptures collections like Pattra-leaf scriptures and Kangyur via; There are numerous and various cultural relics, including golden books, golden and jade seals, porcelains, enamels, brocades, crafts, and gold, silver and jade articles.In addition, there are wall paintings on all walls of the palace, Buddhist prayer rooms and passages of the Potala Palace and various relief sculptures around there. Most of the murals and sculptures are bright and colorful, which are mainly themed by plateau scenery, historical tales, stories of Buddhism and construction scenes of the Potala Palace, etc. And they are of highly historical and artistic values.

Jokhang Temple

The Jokhang Temple is in the center of the old urbanarea of Lhasa, which has a history of over 1,350 years. Legend has it thatwhere Jokhang Temple locates was originally a lake. Songtsen Gampo once made apromise to Princess Bhrikuti at the lakeside that he would build a Buddha hallwhere his ring fell. Unexpectedly, the ring happened to fall into the lakebefore it was suddenly covered by light, reflecting a white nine-story pagoda.Then, a huge project was started by thousands of white goats transporting soilto build the temple. Jokhang Temple has undergone the construction for overthree years, and it was named “Rasa Zulagkhang” to commemorate contributionsfrom those white goats, because in Tibetan language “ra” meant “goat” and “sa”meant “soil”, Zulagkhang meaning scripture hall, full name meaning thescripture hall which was built from soil transported by white goats. Theprecious image of the 12-year old Buddha Shakyamuni statue is consecrated inthe Jokhang Temple. Every year, tens of thousands of Buddhists from far andnear, come to Lhasa only for paying their religious homage to this statue,which got a consecration by Shakyamuni in person when he was alive.

Sera Monastery

Sera Monastery is one of three famous monasteries in Tibetalong with the Drepung Monastery and the Ganden Monastery. It is the latestbuilt building among three Monasteries. The Sera Monastery, located at the footof Tatipu Hill in the northern suburb of Lhasa City, is one of the three majormonasteries of the Gelug Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It was built in 1419, themonastery means “Wild Rose Monastery” in Tibetan language. There is a mainhall, three Dratsang (college) and 29 khumtsen (dormitory of monks). There areover 5,500 monks at most. The monastery still keeps over ten thousand of vajraBuddha, most of which are made locally in Tibet. Many of them are copper statueof Buddha brought from mainland or India. Main hall and walls of other monkdormitories and chapels maintain a lot of original color murals. There are Jie,Me, and Nga-pa three scripture halls and colleges. Sera Je College is thelargest college where the monks study the Sutras. Sera Me College is the nextlargest college, where the monks study medicine. The third college is SeraNgag-pa College, the Tantric College. There are more than 9,000 Buddhist monksin that temple during the golden age. Sera Monastery did not suffer fromserious destruction in her history.

Drepung Located on the mountain of Gephel Wutse at the west suburb of Lhasa, Drepung Monastery is one of the three greatest monastery of Gelug Sect, and the biggest monastery in Tibet. Covering an area of about 200, 000 square meters, and the grand monastery which once contained more than 10 thousand monks is composed of white buildings arranged in close order, looking like a huge rice pile, so it is named Drepung. Drepung means “Mound of Rice” in Tibetan language, a symbol of prosperity. The Drepung Monastery was founded in 1416 AD by a disciple of Tsongkhapa named Jamyang Choje. Tsongkhapa once personally presided the consecration ceremony there. When firstly built, the temple was very small, with only a small hall covering an area of dozen square meters and 7 monks. During the first half of the seventeenth century, Fifth Dalai lama expanded the temple, which was finally developed into seven Dratsang. The major architectures of Drepung Monastery are the Tsoqen Hall, four colleges, Ganden Podrang and 50 Khumtsen. The Tsoqen Hall, among them, is a place for all monks to congregate to chant and perform ceremonies. Incorporated from seven Dratsang, four colleges include Gomang, Roscelin, Deyang and Ngagpa Dratsang; Before the Potala Palace was rebuilt, Ganden Podrang is the bedroom for Dalai Lama in the Drepung Monastery. As a rule, these colleges would house a total of about 800 monks. In the past, 10,000 monks were living at Drepung. Fifth Dalai Lama has been living here since he took power of government and religion in Tibet. During the Sholton Festival, the Drepung Monastery will hold a large exhibition of Buddha which exerts a wide influence.

Yamdrok Lake

Yamdrok Lake, “swan pool” in Tibetan language, is one of the three holy lakes in Tibet. Elevation of the lake-surface is 4441 meters. The lake is 130 kilometers long from east to west and 70 kilometers wide from north to south. The lake shoreline is 250 kilometers in length, and the total area of the lake is 638 square kilometres. The average depth of the lake is 20 to 40 meters. It is the largest inland lake in the area of northern peaks of the Himalayas. There are many forks in Yamdrok Lake, which seem like coral branches, so it is also called “Coral Lake above”. More than ten small islands distributed in the lake. The large ones can hold five to six households, while the small ones are only hundreds of square meters. After climbing over the Khambala which is almost 5030 meters high, you get through its pass and tread straight down upon a road, along which it i takes you about 30 minutes to get to the Yamdrok Lake. On this road you will get a perfect angle of view of Yamdrok, since alongside the road are quite a few viewing platforms where you can stop and take pictures. Yamdrok is a low density salt lake. Its freeze-up period begins in the middle of November every year and the ice thickness can reach up to half a meter. The lake abounds in fishes such as Brachymystax Lenok, Tibetan Schizopygopsis, and Gymnocypris waddelli. Here is also the maximum waterfowl habitat in southern Tibet. Every winter, the birds will migrate southward here and there are a great many swans, water pigeons, yellow ducks, fish eagles and spotted eagles around the lake shore and central island areas. There are also plenty of famouse peaks at the west of Yamdrok Lake, such as Khangsong Lhamu Peak and Shegangsu Peak, etc.

Pelkor Chode Monastery

Pelkor Chode Monastery was initially built in Gyangtse, in the 15 century (about 1428), which took 10 years for completion. It is a classic Tibetan Buddhism temple with natural integration of pagoda and monastery. The monastery and the pagoda are an integral whole, which adds radiance to each other. It fully embodies the classic pattern of Tibetan monasteries dated back to the 13th to the middle and later period of the 15th century. Pelkor Chode monastery is the temple of 3 major coexisting sects: Sakya, Kadampa, and Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It now contains 16 Dratsang (monk dormitory). This gives it a special status and influence in the Tibetan Buddhism history. There is a world-famous Pelkor Pagoda in Pelkor monastery. Its formal name is “Bodhi Pagoda”. The pagoda is called “Pelkor Chode”.The Pelkor Chode was firstly established by Rabten Kunzang and the first Panchen Lama, Khedrup Je., in 1418. The Pelkor Chode has a good reputation of "hundreds of thousands of buddha pagodas". The Palcho Temple is extraordinarily charming because of this pagoda. The Palcho Pogoda is not an ordinary pagoda. It has about hundreds of chapels overlapping each other. The pagoda, with 9 levels, is over 32 meters high. There are 77 Buddha halls, 108 doors, shrines and scripture halls, etc. It is a unique treasure in the history of Tibetan architecture. There are more than 100,000 Buddha figures painted in the palace hall, so it is called Hundreds of Thousands of Buddha Pagodas.

Tashilhunpo Monastery

Tashilhunpo Monastery was built by the disciple of Gelug’s founder Tsongkhapa, the 1st Dalai, Gendun Drup. It was initially constructed in 1447 AD, after successive Panchen lamas' renovation and expansion; the scale of the Monastery has expanded constantly. Up to now, it covers an area of 200,000 square meters.After entering the main gate of the temple, the biggest building in sight is the Tsochin Hall. Out of the hall is a yard surrounded by winding corridors, which is the lecture field of the temple. In the past, Panchen Lama often preached to the monks in the temple here and it was also the place where monks carried out the regional reply. In front of the main hall is the main scripture hall. In the center of the scripture hall locates the throne of the Panchen Lama. Of the three Buddha halls at the back of the scripture hall, Shakyamuni hall rests in the middle, Maitreya hall rests in the west side and Tara hall rests in the east side. In Sakyamuni hall, a more than 5-meter-high gilt bronze statue of Shakyamuni is worshiped. It is said that inside the statue there are the Shakyamuni’s relics, Tsongkhapa’s hair and the scull of Gedun Drupa’s scribe, Sherop sangyel. The mural paintings on the wall of the Monastery are mainly biographies, such as Buddha worship figure, the Eighteen Arhats map, etc. There are many kinds of precious cultural relics in the monastery, among which the portrait of the Emperor Qian Long from Qing Dynasty hung in “Jena Lhakang” and other cultural relics kept here are of higher value. The stupa of the fourth Panchen Lama, Lobsang qukyi has been repaired with the tower body wrapped with copper and inlaid with jade jewelry, brilliant and glittering. A panorama of Tashilhunpo monastery drawled in the form of “Thangkha” hangs in the foreign guest lounge of the monastery, which is the current production of the lama in this temple. These are all priceless treasures to study the civil religion and state as well as social development in every historical period of Tibet. Tashilhunpo Monastery adequately reveals the excellent construction art of Tibetan people, which attracts Buddhists and tourists at home and abroad worshiping and visiting here.

Sakya Monastery

The Sakya Monastery is located on the south bank of a River of Sakya County in the Shigatse area. It is about 160 kilometers away from the southwest of Shigatse City and 4280 meters above the sea level. The North Sakya Monastery was built by Kunchok gyelpo in 1073, thus formed the famous Sakya gradually. The North Monastery was gone now. At the first glance, the vast ruins of the north still have the previous magnificent momentum. North Sakya Monastery is a site now, while South Sakya Monastery treasures up wood prototype of original north monastery, which is rare to see.