Tibet! | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Tibet!

That area is around 17,000ft elevation - well above the tree line. The whole Tibetan plateau area is generally above 10,000ft, with the average being closer to 15,000ft.

It's all good - easy to see through the corners!

2019112823024375-5362017550821118038-2237B744-E962-4985-BC43-9C1D87BC33F2-X5.jpg
 
Do they have a pull over at 13000' where you can adjust the carburetors :LOL:
... looks like one of those places that you could watch your dog run away from home for several days.
 
The biggest bike I saw there was a 200cc. Most of them are around 150cc and lots of carb'd bikes too.

It was quite the sight to see them climbing these elevations with no problems. No helmets and hippo hands are the norm.

This is one of my favourite pics - Everest in the middle with the most insane road leading to it.

2019112823031442--7487301217466062973-556614CB-CADF-4D98-A739-2B16C7AC0D84-X5.jpg
 
@Riceburner...I hear you...I've been following Itchy Boots on her journey and everytime I watch an episode, I think to myself "I so want to be her!!!"...
 
Amazing pics Shane, have fun!
 
I wonder if you could skip a few of those terraces with a dirt bike. You know, just go straight up. Terrain looks like a blast for dirt riding.
 
You absolutely could, but most of the edges of the paved roads have completely vertical drops on the low sides. I see a few smaller dirt bikes around like Honda XR's and they also have a variety of Enfield's with knobbies and spoked rims.

Stay off the roads and there is unlimited off-road riding, kind of like riding in the southwest states but at high elevation.

Nepal (which is one of the most mountainous countries in the world), has tons of bike rental places but it seems much less common in Tibet because you must have a guide outside Lhasa. Our guide in Tibet leads multi day rides on BMW GS's for small groups and up to 20 riders!
 
Toll Free Traveller

he's now doing short little videos of his trip along with 10 other riders from Nepal to the base camp...he's on episode 3 as of this morning...filmed back in October...

how was your trip Shane?
 
Incredible video. Thanks for sharing with us.
 
Toll Free Traveller

he's now doing short little videos of his trip along with 10 other riders from Nepal to the base camp...he's on episode 3 as of this morning...filmed back in October...

how was your trip Shane?
Thanks for the link - looking forward to watching more his stuff over the holidays.
Trip was really amazing. Started a new job after returning, so I had to spend a week catching up while training my replacement while working on new projects at the same time, so I haven't even had time to look at pics yet.

We did 3 days in Beijing, 8 days in Tibet, 5 days in Nepal and 5 days in India. For anyone interested in going to Tibet, I'll post up more later with some details on things to know about visa, permits, border crossings and just getting around. But for now I will say that the amount of Chinese suppression of the Tibet people is uncomfortable - cameras and big brother watching everywhere. The Tibetan people are incredible and their way of life is really something that we enjoyed learning about. Every night we stayed in a different place and were super lucky because we were the only ones on our tour, so the guides non English speaking wife joined us for the whole trip. She ran a guest camp at Everest Base Camp and since it was no longer climbing season, she was doing a pilgrimage to all the important Buddhist monasteries and temples across Tibet.

Nepal is somewhere I would easily go back to and spend more time in, because I just like being anywhere there are mountains and good food. We started in Kathmandu, headed over to Pokhara and then moved south over to Lumbini. Kathmandu is a big, dirty city, so it was a welcome change to get to Pokhara which is pretty quiet with a laid back vibe. I really like Pokhara even though it has a bit of a tourist trap feel to it. Lumbini was neat to see the birthplace of Buddha, but we only had 1 day there. While in India, we decided to not move around so much and just stay in Varanasi for 3 days and then New Delhi for 2 days. I really enjoyed walking around the city and watching all the bodies burning along the Ganges River. The markets and food in Varanasi was really incredible.

Highlight of the trip for me by far was in Varanasi, when we found a local tabla and sitar shop, who make the instruments and teach all levels of students and also do concerts. They were lifelong musicians - skills passed down from their parents who were also table and sitar makers in Varanasi. They gave us a private concert which blew me away, because they were so insanely skilled at their craft. I was not expecting this concert at all and it's weird that this was more impactful to me than seeing Everest and all that Tibet had to offer.

I'll post up a bunch of pics in a bit.
 
sounds like an amazing trip, truly something to remember for a lifetime...i personally don't have a yearning to visit that part of the world (not sure why, just don't :( ), however, from what I've seen on YouTube and heard, it's a spectacular place with wonderful people...congrats on the new job and glad to see you're back safe...can't wait for the pics! :D
 
It was pretty cold in Beijing - pretty much around 0deg. But no need for heated gear when you ride with carpets taped to the front of your bike. They also had these great bixi style bike shares, that had a lock on the rear wheel. People just park the bikes everywhere when they are done with them and it seems to work.
i-Pfs3ftc-X5.jpg


Not sure about this one. There was a phone right beside the sign too, so they weren't lying. I have so many pictures of strange signage.
i-6m2ZrjD-X5.jpg


One thing we always wanted to see was the Great Wall and it did not disappoint. It's almost 7000km long and millions of people died making this thing. Thousands of people spent their entire lives building this wall - they would live up in the mountains right where they were building the wall and were essentially slaves.
i-rVfzkD4-X5.jpg


No legs, no problem!
i-DDxHj8w-X5.jpg


Due to their strong faith and heritage, the colours and architecture on the buildings across Tibet is very homogeneous - I really liked it!
i-JsbjgQJ-X5.jpg


This place is called Potala Palace apparently housed around 10,000 monks at one time and was the winter home of Dalai Lama's for over 1000 years. It was enormous and the level of detail inside was remarkable, with ornate carvings, statues, prayer halls and more. In these monasteries, many of the previous Dalai Lama's would study, teach, live and be buried. Throughout Tibet, no pictures are allowed in any temples or monasteries though. We climbed inside and checked the whole place out. No heat, no lights, no flush toilets, no thanks!
i-R9qkcrM-X5.jpg


Our guide Sonam and his wife Dolma at a glacier lake - this is around 15'000ft elevation. One of the nice things about travelling at non-peak periods is that everywhere we went, we were pretty much the only ones there. Sonam was telling me that between April-November he doesn't get any days off because it's one large group after another. He also does 6-10day moto tours on BMW's which would be pretty sweet. Both he and his wife grew up and live in a small village near Everest. He was born in Tibet and left when he was 3 to go to school in Nepal, which is why he speaks very good English. He came back as a teenager, just before the Chinese stopped allowing this practice. He has brothers and sisters who were not able to come back and have been stuck in Nepal their whole lives. He wasn't allowed to talk about it and opened up our trip by saying that anything to do with religion or politics about the Chinese was not allowed. Later on we met a Tibetan in Nepal who we talked to for quite a while. He told us that he knows many people who have spoken against the Chinese rule in Tibet and they just vanished and their families don't even know if they are dead or imprisoned.
i-JKgcpQ4-X5.jpg


Tibetan prayer flags are found all over the higher ground of the plateau. In the middle of the pic there is a small castle, or building of some sort that juts out into the lake. The only way to get there is to walk along the crest of these rocks. It was probably built a few hundred years ago and a lot of these lakes are considered holy lakes, because they get their water from nearby holy mountains. Pilgrims who are typically farmers from the remote villages would do pilgrimage walks around the bases of these mountains - sometimes for days on end.
i-5kH83mV-X5.jpg


This is the Rongbuk Monastery - the highest monastery in the world, located just a few miles north of Everest Base Camp, which is front and centre here. We were supposed to sleep here on this night, but the two previous nights I was barfing my brains out after catching some bug. I got lucky and we happened to be staying in some decent digs, so I had clean toilets to embrace. Since I wasn't really feeling like barfing into a pit toilet that hadn't been cleaned in 500 years, we opted to sleep in the village that both our guide, his wife and driver lived in. But that view from up here - would have been something special to wake up to!
i-5Q8fsqs-X5.jpg


As much as I disliked the Chinese presence in Tibet, they have done a ton of infrastructure improvements, making it a surprisingly smooth country to travel through (asides from the camera's and checkpoints everywhere). As we cross over into Nepal, the road from the Tibet border to Kathmandu is one of the worst I've been on. Long stretches of 1st gear only with potholes that would swallow the wheels of a normal car. 4x4's are the minimum standard here and 160km took 10hrs on a completely dry day with next to no traffic. Can't imagine it in the rainy season. But hey, they are building a new road which is mostly at low elevation which would only take around 3-4 hours. If the Chinese are building it, it should be ready in a year. If the Nepalese are building it, the road will never be ready and will wash out during the first rains. Now that we are at lower elevations there are beautiful conifer forests. Next up, Nepal and India:)
i-VcNNmG7-X5.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the link - looking forward to watching more his stuff over the holidays.
Trip was really amazing. Started a new job after returning, so I had to spend a week catching up while training my replacement while working on new projects at the same time, so I haven't even had time to look at pics yet.

We did 3 days in Beijing, 8 days in Tibet, 5 days in Nepal and 5 days in India. For anyone interested in going to Tibet, I'll post up more later with some details on things to know about visa, permits, border crossings and just getting around. But for now I will say that the amount of Chinese suppression of the Tibet people is uncomfortable - cameras and big brother watching everywhere. The Tibetan people are incredible and their way of life is really something that we enjoyed learning about. Every night we stayed in a different place and were super lucky because we were the only ones on our tour, so the guides non English speaking wife joined us for the whole trip. She ran a guest camp at Everest Base Camp and since it was no longer climbing season, she was doing a pilgrimage to all the important Buddhist monasteries and temples across Tibet.

Nepal is somewhere I would easily go back to and spend more time in, because I just like being anywhere there are mountains and good food. We started in Kathmandu, headed over to Pokhara and then moved south over to Lumbini. Kathmandu is a big, dirty city, so it was a welcome change to get to Pokhara which is pretty quiet with a laid back vibe. I really like Pokhara even though it has a bit of a tourist trap feel to it. Lumbini was neat to see the birthplace of Buddha, but we only had 1 day there. While in India, we decided to not move around so much and just stay in Varanasi for 3 days and then New Delhi for 2 days. I really enjoyed walking around the city and watching all the bodies burning along the Ganges River. The markets and food in Varanasi was really incredible.

Highlight of the trip for me by far was in Varanasi, when we found a local tabla and sitar shop, who make the instruments and teach all levels of students and also do concerts. They were lifelong musicians - skills passed down from their parents who were also table and sitar makers in Varanasi. They gave us a private concert which blew me away, because they were so insanely skilled at their craft. I was not expecting this concert at all and it's weird that this was more impactful to me than seeing Everest and all that Tibet had to offer.

I'll post up a bunch of pics in a bit.

Thanks,I’ve enjoyed going through your post.
it’s a shame ,I’m a Tibetan but I never been to Tibet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well it's certainly very difficult to Tibetans to go visit Tibet. I'd suspect next to impossible right now based on the little bits other Tibetans have told me.

Totally forgot about this thread. I never did write up about Nepal and India.
Coming soon!
 
We need more travel stuff on here instead of the continuous political drivel, so I thought I would update this trip report.

The primary border town near Mt Everest and between Tibet / Nepal is a town called Kyirong. There was another nearby border town, but a major earthquake in 2015 hit Nepal and caused so much damage they had to close it. One of my first observations was that the difference in culture, infrastructure and landscape is nothing short of remarkable between Tibet and Nepal. The border crossing in Tibet was formal, quiet, respectful, clean and organized. The border side in Nepal was super laid back, disorganized and has a major drop off in terms of the quality of infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc). Entering the land of organized chaos and motorcycle heaven.
i-HJX9JSK-4K.jpg


The lower altitude also lends itself to lush vegetation as far as the eye can see in every direction. The roads go from short distances of properly paved asphalt to never-ending miles of potholed dirt madness. The road to get to Kathmandu is one of the worst roads I have ever been on. It took us 10 hours to travel this 150km stretch in a 4 wheel drive ride. We were literally going 1st gear for most of the 10 hours. Motorcycles can move so much faster that they could do this trip in 1/2 the time. The obvious hazard of riding in mountainous regions is the right of weight rule. Our driver was a young kid who does this drive every single day for the tourist/riving company he works for and I wondered if this kind of driving would give someone some gradual brain trauma because he hit his head on the side window a few times from the crazy potholes. I still loved it and would go back in a heartbeat. This is the road we came up and is like this for hours on end.
i-gmVTGLF-4K.jpg

Way down below and next to the river, there is a road that is being built to provide a faster connection between Kathmandu and the border. So instead of taking 10+ hours to do the drive, this road might get the trip done in 4 hours or so and almost all of it is at low elevation.
i-MPBjSth-4K.jpg

All along these Himalayan mountain sides, there is some form of subsistence farming going on. It's worth mentioning that Nepal is one of the most mountainous countries in the world (next to Bhutan). Reminded me very much of so many other countries I've been in.
i-hRKpz79-4K.jpg


After 10 hours of this amazing drive we start to descend into the Kathmandu valley. I had read that Kathmandu has very poor air quality so we had bought masks in Tibet to prepare ourselves for it. That's air pollution hovering above the city down below.
i-gdrfHvL-X3.jpg


I really liked Kathmandu. I usually don't like big cities and stay in the rural areas as much as possible, but there was something about it I really liked. There is tons of people everywhere and you do have to be a bit mindful of your surroundings, but it's a treat of a city. Our hotel was right in the heart of the busiest part of the city and it was a treat to walk around and explore all the storefronts and vendors. Once we found our lodgings, we immediately went out to explore and grab some food. Found a sweet place selling momo's and realized that I am in food heaven right now with the blending of so many nearby cultural cuisines available here. There is so much Indian, Tibetan and food from other nearby countries mixed together here I could easily gain a pound a day from eating. In fact I went to Sri Lanka for 2 weeks some years ago and literally gained a pound a day from eating, so I know I can do it. A view from outside our 5th floor room loooking down to the lobby. This hotel had an amazing restaurant inside it too.
i-cXg7dbK-4K.jpg


From here we head out to the Monkey Temple and see what is happening in the big city. One of the things I like the best about travelling is people and culture watching. Even though I'm not religious, getting to see the various sacred festivals, holy places and rituals that people all across the world is really important to me. It helps to keep things in perspective when faced with the amount of complaining that goes on in North America. At the Monkey Temple there was this interesting thing happening - looked like they were carefully laying out spices and other things here and a few minutes after this pic was taken a big procession started.
i-zfTxzZn-4K.jpg


The level of detail in some of the carvings that adorned the buildings was incredible. And many of these buildings are hundreds of years old, some over a thousand years old and pretty well preserved despite the throngs of people everywhere.
i-RHPVF3j-4K.jpg


I remember years ago travelling throughout the Middle East and being in Beirut and noticing how the phone/electrical wiring was so haphazard from building to building all over the streets. In the Middle East it was due to the decades of conflict and repeated bombings. I even bought a t-shirt with an image of the overhead wires referencing the beauty in chaos. Kathmandu was very much the same.
i-b28tZGz-4K.jpg


Monkeys!
i-sBt8DZk-4K.jpg


After a few days of being immersed in the culture and crowds of Kathmandu it's time to slow it down and head to somewhere to relax. Tomorrow off to Pokhara, Nepal!
 
Last edited:

Back
Top Bottom