Tibet Transportation Information

Tibet Transportation Information – Transportation to Tibet

Qinghai-Tibet Railway, Sichuan-Tibet Railway, Yunnan-Tibet Highway, Xinjiang-Tibet Highway or the Friendship Highway between Nepal and Tibet are all choices for tourists planning a Tibet tour. There is a common rule that the most beautiful places are always hard to reach. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway enjoys good road condition and it involves less transportation cost to enter into Tibet along this highway compared to the other highways leading to Tibet.

With high altitude and severe climate, the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway is the most challenging one among the highways to Tibet. Tourists making a Tibet tour along the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway have to experience sudden altitude change: Karghalik (800m) – Jieshan Mountain Pass (5300m) – Ngari (4500m). The sudden altitude change along Xinjiang-Tibet Highway has beyond the normal human being's physical bearing capacity. For tourists only have a short vacation in Tibet and be worried about the high altitude sickness, enter into Tibet by air is the best choice.

Tibet Transportation Information – Transportation in Tibet

For tourists planning a Tibet tour after visiting the Shangri-la in Yunnan Province, it wwould be a good choice to take the long-distance between Qamdo and Deqen, which is located on the border between Yunnan and Tibet. The long-distance sleeper bus between Qamdo and Lhasa is also available at Bangda Bus Station. For tourists willing to pay a visit to Nyingchi first, it would be a good choice to take the long-distance bus between Qamdo and Zay, located at border of Tibet and India. At Zay, tourists could enjoy the primitive forest landscape.

Bayi Town is the transportation center in Nyingchi Prefecture in Tibet. There are buses to Bome County and Lhasa. The 400 kilometers section between Bayi Town and Lhasa enjoys good road condition. Lhasa is the transportation center of Tibet and there are buses to Ngari, Shannan, Shigatse and Damgxung from Lhasa. The road condition in Tibet keeps improving recent years. Some of the roads were closed due to poor road condition in the rainy seasons several years ago. But after continuous reconstruction and repair, some of them are suitable for traffic all year around.

Currently, except the road to the Double Lake Depopulated Zone, most of the roads in Tibet could meet the basic transportation demand. Even the road condition of the roads to Mt. Everest Base Camp and Ngari Plateau has been greatly improved. To cut down the transportation cost, tourists planning to pay a visit to Ngari Prefecture could choose the long-distance bus instead of rent a vehicle from Lhasa. The vehicle renting cost is pretty high in the peak season of Tibet tour.

Tourists making a self-help tour to Ngari could also take a "free ride" to Ngari with a small amount of money. The truck drivers are always glad to help the tourists traveling on their own. Tourists willing to visit the remote Qiangtang Prairie are strongly suggested to rent a vehicle since there are few shuttle buses. Besides, the driver must be familiar with the route and the road condition, or you might get in big trouble in the sparsely populated area.