Tibet
This is one of the few countries to rival my new country Canada for its beauty and clean air. You can see for absolutely miles in clear pollution free air. I always wanted to go here from a very young age, I finally managed it at the age of 45, and I must say it was well worth waiting for .The people are so friendly (although it is very difficult to make yourself understood, very few Tibetan people speak English or French. We did have some success with the younger Chinese people. There is bloody hundreds of them here, they seem to be taking over most of the shops and we also saw the Chinese undercover agents :-) at work in the temples, it was so obvious they were watching every move the monks made. It is much easier to get to Tibet now, when I went it took 2 weeks to get a visa from Nepal and we had to go as a tour (to do this we got four of us who wanted to go and called ourselves a tourist group) Hey! don't laugh it worked! :-).

First tip Under NO!! consideration do anything to any of the mangy looking dogs that roam in packs all over Tibet. To harm or frighten one of these is the worst thing you could do. All dogs are regarded as reincarnated monks waiting to return again, so be warned.
One great tip before you go here, take lots of photographs of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan people can not (are not allowed by the Chinese) get them. When you give them out only give them to people on their own or you will soon be inundated, believe me I know :-). Needless to say do not let the Chinese see you doing this. Another thing when traveling anywhere in China if you want to go to places where westerners are not allowed,
Always have your next destination in mind, because if you get arrested they will ask where you came from and promptly send you back, think about it, your next destination or back where you came from?, free transport, sound good?

Another good tip, if you intend to post any letters or postcards be warned, Tibetan stamps have no glue on them, you have to use a bucket that is full of the most foul looking and smelling stuff you ever saw, this is their glue, never go posting your mail on a full stomach :-).

Always walk clockwise around the Temples, or you will struggle in the narrower areas, everybody goes clockwise.

Flying in If you are flying in to Lhasa be very careful not to have a heavy backpack, I tell you the shortage of air (it is 4000 meters above sea level) is really something. After you have been there for a day it is not to bad but the first day I would recommend do very little more than take a short stroll. Another thing for air travelers is if you are going late in the season (I went in December) and you want to get back to Nepal, sometimes the weather closes the airport for weeks, so alternate arrangements have to be made (I called it a day and flew home for Xmas via Hong Kong).

Trans. Mongolia or Trans. Siberia Railway, If you intend to take either of these be sure to pack some extremely warm clothing, these trains can get down to -50° at night. I was planning to come back on the Trans. Mongolia but did not have the clothing, hence the need for good sound info :-)

Food If you cannot read Chinese it is slightly difficult here, I would advise you to do what we did. Three of us would go out together and each of us would pick a different meal by just point at anything on the menu, this way we were almost certain of getting at least one thing we could eat :-) I cannot remember for sure but I am pretty confident we always enjoyed whatever we got. We had some fantastic foods (don't ask what it was I have no clue) and I would have no hesitation in saying they are dammed good cooks. :-)

Another Tip If you go walking outside of Lhasa be very careful to remember your way back, there are absolutely no street lights and English speaking people are more scarce than Lhasa
I flew to Lhasa from Kathmandu but I have read and been told the overland route via the Friendship road and bridge (everything seems to be called friendship here) :-) is a really superb trip.(Try to use the toilet on the plane before landing, The airport facilities are a joke, a smelly one at that) There are some super temples here including obviously the Dalai Lama's own residence the Potala Palace (this was only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays so phone first 22896 this is the number how you converse is your problem) :-). This is a fantastic place be sure to allow at least one day to see this there is a lot to see. Also in Lhasa is the Jhokang Temple with it massive gold leaf covered bells and Barkhor Bazaar, (right outside the Jhokang) the market is really good as is the local store called the Friendship Store. Just outside Lhasa is Drepung Monastery this is a nice place, you can watch the monks having their daily lessons and discussions here, I don't know why but they always seem to clap when they speak. Also a place to see is Sera Monastery (this was famous for its fighting monks) There is a sky burial place just up the mountainside from Sera Monastery but it is closed to tourists now, I would also recommend you do not try to get around this, as both the Chinese and the Tibetans do not take kindly to unwanted spectators at an occasion like this.

Places to stay

Two good cheap places to stay are the Snowlands and Banak Shol hotels. These are real Tibetan places, good food, good fun and good company. A place to avoid like the plague is the Holiday Inn Lhasa. It is clean and the food is good but the brains behind the building of it were not. It seems they bought the Architects plans from someone in sunny California and built it exactly to plan in freezing Tibet, even down to the marble floors. In all fairness they do give you plenty of room heaters (if they have them to spare).If you want luxury stay here, but buy a bloody big warm coat, believe me you will need it...

Gyantse
The main sight in Gyantse is the Pango Chorten, it is a massive temple,( I think it is called the Pagoda of 50,000 images) this is a place not to be missed. If you can get to the roof there is a super view all over the town. I am sure it is closed Sundays and only open to the public in the afternoons.(PS. your pictures of the Dalai Lama will get you in here whereas people with no pictures will not get in. You will see a lot of the damage the Chinese did around this area, entire Monasteries were decimated. It is a major stopover area for truck drivers so you would have no problem hitchhiking around here. The scenery is out of this world around here. If you are heading to Shigatse from here you will pass numerous temples destroyed by the Chinese, some of them (Pali Gompa used to house hundreds of monks now only about 30 remain, this is being refurbished) are occupied by the Chinese army.

Shigatse
This is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama (who, last I heard was taken to Beijing) The Tashilhunpo Monastery (used to house over 4000 monks now only 200 remain) This is again a full day at least to see it all. It is a monastery and town together. The things not to miss here are the 27 metres high gold leafed Buddha, the great hall which houses the funeral pagodas of former Panchen Lamas (one of these is 11 metres high gold and silver plated and full of valuable stones. The Tashilunpo is closed Sundays and only open 9-30 to 12-30 mornings. If you have you pictures with you you may get admitted in the afternoons. Outside the walls is another sky burial place, sometimes they admit tourists sometimes they don't, again the pictures may gain entry for you. One place I thought was beautiful and a must to see (and photograph) was the Yamdrok Tso This is between Lhasa and Shigatse. It is known as the Turquoise Lake is a super place to spend a few hours.

Here's a little story of what happened to us on a dark night
When I go abroad I always leave my digs with some form of address. In 1991 I went to Tibet and did a trip from Lhasa to Shigatse and Gyantse. Whilst in Shigatse we decided to go to a local watering hole so about 6-30 pm we set out and found a place that was full of locals (why we needed locals I don't know as non of us spoke Tibetan or Chinese!) it was only a café but the owner after some basic hand signals realized we wanted beer so he sent one of his customers out to get some, so far it was great, we had the beers, and some more, and some more eventually we had to go back to our digs so we went outside and WOW! was it dark (there was no electricity in this part of town) We didn't have a clue as to which direction to take (partly due to the utter blackness and I guess the strong Chang didn't help much either)After walking around for maybe 1 1/2 hours I decided to play my trump card. I always leave my digs with some form of address and in this instance I took a tablet of soap, as usually it has the hotel name on it. We were showing this to locals, nomads and Chinese in fact everyone who passed as by this time the temperature was down to about minus 25, of course nobody had a clue what we were after(as nobody spoke English or French).After about 2 hours of this we were panicking something bad, then along came two young girls on bicycles on seeing us obviously lost they stopped, so I got the soap out and showed them where we wanted to get to (I thought) they both burst out laughing and in pretty good English asked what did we wanted, So we explained we wanted to get back to our hotel which was on the soap tablet, more laughter, after a few minutes they explained the packet had only the name of the SOAP not the HOTEL on it. I don't know if you have noticed this but 99.999% have the hotel name on, with us not knowing the first thing about Chinese writing we didn't know this was the odd 0.0001%, it always pays to check!!!

If you are planning a trip to Tibet and have any questions, or you know any updated information contact me

I will reply ASAP.