The only way for tourists to visit the Tibetan autonomous region, is by going on a tour – which we despise doing. We’ve already spent a lot of time in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai, but we figured it was time we finally bit the bullet and visited the spiritual heart of Tibet. 

So we booked onto a seven-day tour, visiting Lhasa, the sacred Yamdrok Lake, Shigatse and Everest base camp. 

The tour company had great reviews and offered small group tours, of up to 16 people. I don’t consider that a small group, but we were hopeful that it wouldn’t be full. 

What we didn’t expect was two groups to be combined together due to a lack of guides. So now our group was 22 people – this is why we hate tours. 

When we arrived in Lhasa, a lady met us at the train station – but it wasn’t a warm welcome. Her sign was printed in black and white so it looked nothing like the multicoloured logo we were told to look out for. She was also wearing a full face mask – many Chinese and Tibetans wear face masks as sun protection, but some take it to the next level and get one which covers the entire face. 

Without knowing if she was smiling or not, we walked to the van where she held two white scarves known as Khata in her arms. They were supposed to be gifted on our arrival but she forgot, and sheepishly gave them to us when we reached the van. 

Call us optimists, but we expected a jolly ‘Tashi Dalek!’ (The warm Tibetan greeting) a big smile, and ‘Welcome to Tibet’ while giving us the scarves, instead we got a faceless woman scrolling on her phone for a name saying “This you?”

She told us in the van that she didn’t speak good English and would just be taking us to our hotel, providing us with a contact for our actual guide who we’d get the next day. 

She spoke enough English to say “Don’t take any photos of military, security, police, government buildings – and don’t talk to anyone about politics”. We knew security would be strict in Tibet, but her words were a stark reminder, and the police and army presence was evident everywhere we looked.  

Our tour included four-star hotels – except for at Everest, so as budget travellers that usually spend £10-15 a night, we were in for a treat. In Lhasa, we checked into a beautiful Tibetan-style hotel with lovely wooden detailing and a grand entrance. 

We were given traditional Chinese medicine tea, and a bellboy took our luggage to our room on a classic, gold, trolley – how fancy. 

He showed us a few features in our room – such as a humidifier – something us Brits struggle to comprehend after living in damp, mouldy houses where we buy dehumidifiers. The room was also equipped with an oxygen machine between the two beds. 

Lhasa sits at 3600m and our oxygen levels were pretty good, with the machine reading our levels at around 90% which was optimum for the altitude we were at. 

Now that we were checked in we were free to explore Lhasa on our own. The area we were staying in felt like a typical Chinese town, but with even more security than normal. 

We got our first glimpse of Potala Palace, standing tall above the town, but first we wanted to explore Barkhor Street. The outer roads were free to access but closer to Jokhang Temple we had to pass our bags through security scanners and show our passports. 

The buildings were all about four stories high, painted with large, black-framed windows that were adorned with floaty material along the top. A short walk in a clockwise direction led us to Jokhang Temple, the sacred heart of Lhasa where an endless flow of Tibetans walked around the circumference of the building. 

The pilgrimage route, known as a Kora, had a special zone on the floor, where a wide strip of light-coloured paving slabs marked the area where pilgrims could prostrate. We’ve witnessed this in other Tibetan areas, but the pilgrims in Lhasa were taking it to the next level. A few men dressed in gingham aprons and knee pads enthusiastically clapped their wooden hand pads above their heads, before running forward and effortlessly gliding their bodies across the ground, the wooden blocks protecting their hands from the stone ground. 

The area was teeming with people, and occasionally I’d spot a Tibetan lady with neatly braided hair and large gemstones wrapped around her head. Some had huge slabs of amber attached to their forehead while others wore a string of emeralds around their head. 

After completing the kora we veered up a few different alleys until we came across the black market area, where locals were selling gemstones. Unlike usual markets where products are displayed on tables, these sellers hung their stock around their necks. People were adorned with large pieces of amber and neatly strung beads of coral causing locals to pause and take a closer look.

We spent a few hours exploring Barkhor before making our way to Potala Palace. We were surprised to find the road leading there was lined with top outdoor shops like Arc’teryx, The North Face etc. 

Across the road from the palace was a nice area with trees and a large pond, but before entering, our bags were passed through another scanner and our ID and permits were checked. 

It was a little surreal to see Potala Palace in person after seeing only photos of the grand structure that used to be the residence of the Dalai Lama. 

We made our way to a square in front of the palace which had a huge poster of the Chinese president along with Chinese flags swaying in the wind.

We were pretty shattered by this point and our tour would take us inside Potala Palace the following day, so we decided to make our way back to our lovely hotel room and relax. 

There was a fab view of the mountains out of our window where we watched a storm roll in while lying in bed wearing a luxury dressing gown and connected to the oxygen supply like I was a patient in a private hospital. 

The following day we enjoyed a bountiful breakfast buffet before heading to reception to meet our tour guide and group. The guide was a sweet Tibetan lady, but sadly she didn’t speak good English. She explained that we’d have a different guide for the rest of the trip who spoke great English, and that the paying Singaporean guests on our tour would have to translate her Chinese into English for us. We were shocked that we’d paid for an English-speaking guide and instead they were planning on using guests to translate for us. 

For the first day of the tour, we were put into a small group with five others, consisting of three Singaporeans and two Malaysians. They were all really kind, spoke amazing English, and had a good sense of humour so we were happy. 

We were driven in a van to Potala Palace, where we passed through security and arrived at a fast flow of human traffic, as hundreds of Tibetans walked the pilgrimage route around the palace. They mostly stuck to the outside of the building, as the inside lacks the significance that it once did to them. 

It was a formidable building, sitting atop a hill and standing 13 storeys tall, with 1000 rooms. I of course didn’t find that out from our guide, as we had no idea what she was saying for most of the tour. She did tell us that the white walls of the palace were made from a mixture of white stones, yak butter, milk and sugar. 

We climbed hundreds of steps, passing occasional sections of the original stone steps which were now off limits. Our guide pointed to an area in the distance, saying it was where a large Tibetan hospital used to be but was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. This led to a discussion about Tibetan medicine and we were told that you can take the clothes of a sick person to a Tibetan doctor who can smell the health conditions on the clothes. Then she said “They also taste the urine of the sick person to see what’s wrong with them”. Apparently, it’s all to do with compassion, but geez, count me out. 

It felt like a maze as we were led from one room to another, somehow looping up at the end to a place where we’d been twenty minutes before. As we entered a large prayer hall, our guide spoke to a monk who proceeded to bless us all by tapping the yellow boot of a Dalai Lama on our heads. 

There was a chapel section where bejewelled stupas held the bodies of previous Dalai Lamas, and locals placed money through plastic slots as offerings. 

It would have been nice to learn more about what we were seeing but the language barrier made that impossible, and soon enough it was time for us to leave and hop in a van towards Barkhor Street. 

We stopped for lunch on the roof of a Tibetan eatery where we had views of Lhasa’s most famous sights. The food was a little disappointing, but on the plus side, the guide encouraged us to get beers as it was one of the only complimentary meals included on the tour. 

While we walked around Jokhang Temple the day before, this time we were exploring the interior. It was built 1300 years ago and was full of history and great significance for Tibetans, but it wasn’t relaxing like the temples we visited in other areas of Tibet – in fact, it was overwhelmingly busy. 

Crowds of people slowly shuffled through the dark passageways, stopping to admire jewelled statues and Buddha images. Our guide offered to get something of ours blessed, and carefully took a handful of our group’s necklaces, earrings, keychains etc to a monk. 

We all joked that that would be the last time we’d see her, but of course, she returned with all our treasured items, along with colourful grains which she told us to keep in a safe place. 

While the temple is very sacred and important to Tibetans, it was one of the least impressive ones we’ve visited – mainly because of the crowds and controlled way of viewing the sight. 

After the temple, we were free to do as we pleased, and while it was tempting to stroll around Barkhor Street again, we were both wiped out so we headed back to the hotel, got into our fancy dressing gowns and connected ourselves to the oxygen.