To travel in Tibet right now, I had to get a permit just to enter (which was scrutinized numerous times at the airport on the way), and also to travel anywhere besides Lhasa. Ultimately there were several permits involved and lots of police checkpoints along the roads, about every 1 1/2 hours or so. They weren't just checking things related to foreigners traveling, but everyone that passes that point on the road. There aren't a lot of road choices, so it's not really possible to detour around them either. Here are some of my permits:
Leaving Lhasa, we first climbed up and over a big mountain pass at around 15,700 feet. The road was pretty steep and wound around a lot along the way.
You can see a couple of sections of road in this photo.
Then we got to the Yamdrok-Tso lake.
My first yaks of the trip. There were many more to come later!
We stopped at Samding Monastery along the way. It was located high up on a hillside and had some great views. They were doing a lot of construction work on this monastery as well.
This is where the construction workers were living.
Much of the work was being done by hand because the electricity only worked sporadically.
A bit further down the Friendship Highway, we passed some glaciers.
The views along the drive were pretty amazing!
The prayer flags were everywhere in some places!
We stopped for the night in Gyantse. The Pelkhor Chode Monastery is here and has some cool buildings in it.
This is the Gyantse Kumbum, which is the largest chorten in Tibet.
In Shigatse, we made a visit to Tashilhunpo Monastery, which was a really big monastery.
The Chinese language doesn't commonly use the word 'it' which probably explains the weird translation here.
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