15 Days Mt.Lhakpa Ri Expedition

Attractions; Jokhang temple and Sera monastery. In the morning, your guide will meet you at your hotel and take an easy visit to Jokhang Temple. Jokhang temple is the most sacred temple in all over Tibet and it is always bustling with earnest local pilgrims. You have time to walk around Bakhor Street which is one of the devotional circuits as well as the crowded central market of Lhasa. In the afternoon you will visit Sera Monastery, it is built in the fifteenth century by the Jamchen Choji Sakya Yeshi who is a disciple of Tsongka pa, few different monastic colleges in Sera is home to several hundred monks from different part of Tibet, the famous Buddhist philosophical debates among the monks are happening every day in the afternoon except Sunday. Overnight in Lhasa.

Attractions; Potala palace and Drepung monastery. This morning you will visit the famous Potala Palace, it is the cardinal landmark of Tibet and the masterpiece of Tibetan architecture, 33rd King Songtsen Gangpo first built it in the 7^th century and later in the 17^th century rebuilt by the 5^th Dalai Lama, since then it was home to the Dalai Lama. This truly amazing day will end with a visit to the Drepung Monastery. Once the world's largest monastery that houses more than 10,000 monks and residents of the Dalai Lama prior to Potala Palace, continues to acclimatize and alleviate jet lag rest of the day. Overnight in Lhasa.

In the morning you are driving with your guide and driver to Shigatse where you are visiting the Turquoise Lake, Yamdrok (4300m) cross the zigzag high Khamba pass (4990m) experience the great view of the bluish lake and the giant snowy mountains crossing the great view of local Tibetan villages. Then lunch stop at Nakartse town(4400m) drive via Karo pass (5039m) explore the fantastic view of Nyenchenkhangsar glacier (7191m) and another hour road driving to Gyangtse(3900m) the Hero’s Town where you are going to visit Kumbum monastery under the yellow hat sect. Moreover, you can see the Palchoe stupa erected in 1427 at the time of the 1^st Panchen Lama. That is a kind of magnified stupa containing 100 thousand wall paintings, murals, and statues with a height of 32.4m itself, around five floors to climb up clockwise. Once you finish with a short adventure of Hero’s town, another 90km way to Shigatse(3900m), the second largest city of Tibet and which is also popular with the Tibetan barley beer, also you can find the locals sitting around the roads enjoying the taste of barley beers. O/n Shigatse.

Attractions: Sakya monastery, Tso la (4500m), and Gyatso pass (5200m). Today your driving is around 5 hours when visiting the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, under the yellow hat sect. erected by the 1^st Dalai Lama in 1429, also the seat and administration office for Pachen Lamas when the time of 4^th Panchen Lama and still. There you are going to visit the four highest chapels in which you will find the biggest bronze and copper alloy statue of Buddha Jampa i.e. the future Buddha & then stupas of some Panchen Lamas.  Later you are going to drive via Tso la pass and be able to reach there at Sakya monastery (4280m), one of the four sects of Tibetan Buddhism. This monastery is unique in that all the wall colors are ash grey with white and red vertical stripes. Since the name Sakya means grey color in Tibetan. As the coloring symbolizes the Rigsum Gonpo (the trinity of bodhisattvas). Where the monastery is divided into two parts by the river called Zong Chu or Trum Chu. Apart from the religious views, you can also find the different grey houses surrounding the monastery like the core heart of the town. While you finish the visit, you are driving further via a pass called Gyatso la, in the meantime you can see the main road is surrounded by huge mountains and also that place is very popular and rich in slates. Sometimes they also use those slates for making house roofs and floors. The Shegar town is 117km far from the monastery. Overnight Shegar.

Attractions: Phangla or Gyawu la (5250m), Rongbuk monastery, and Everest.

Today you are going to stay one more day here in order to acclimatize where you can do hiking until the EBC; it is like a 4km trek with some visiting like the meditation cave of Guru Rinpoche. Now a day that was kept by a local monk with formal dress and he is serving that cave for 20 years. He is a humble and religious man around 68 years old. However, you can also experience the rocky surrounding with striped mountains on your left side. Walking on the unpaved road gives you the view of some deer if you were lucky. Moreover, you can explore some stones with different shapes and sizes with different colors if you are a rock lover. To hike EBC it takes 2 hours. Once you get there, you can find a medium hill covered with different colored prayer flags blowing in different directions according to the wind direction. Now Everest is in front of you, watching you like a fairy tale giant demon dressing in the half-white color and half-grey color clothes. Overnight guesthouse.

In the morning, your luggage will be loaded on the booked yaks and potters. Once you prepare everything for yourself then you are hiking for the first camp for 9-10 hours. Different camping from expedition groups is acclimatizing near the EBC. However, you can take the mini-bus for 4km if you do not like to hike. So that you can hike from EBC to 1^st camp like 12km. From the left side of the valley, we are slowly walking up towards the 1^st camp passing the shifts and crossing the pass (5400m) so near to the camp. Moreover, from the top, you can see the clone-shaped glaciers near Everest. Where your camp will be so near after crossing the pass, the magnificent view will give you wonderful snapshots. Near the Rongbuk River, you also find so many pools nearby. Overnight camp.

Today is quite an easy hike from camp one to the Interim camp as there is only 8km which takes around 6 hours. While you walk up you can see so many glaciers on the left side of the route up to Interim camp. The steeps give you quite a hard and challenging hike to Interim camp, but still, it’s interesting to walk via the rocky path. As you walked up you can see half the side of the Rongbuk glacier with a shining top that ensures you that your hike to the Lhakpari is more worth full than you thought. Overnight camp.

While hiking for 4km, you are going to take around 1 & half hours to reach 2^nd camp. This camp is situated so near to the last camp right after crossing a small hill you can see this camp with a tent in the center which is for the permit checker by the Mountaineering Association of Tibet. So, you can camp there and the glorious views of the snow land give you more feeling of love towards mother nature. The small Marmots are the live animals over there. Overnight camp.

4km to the 3^rd camp is for 3 hours and is quite easy as you already did the harder part. Now the only thing you need to do is hike up to the 6340m high spot, where you can see the Lhakpa Ri at one side and there you can do some other hiking near the Lhakpa Ri. Then on the left side of Everest. You can see the dramatic views of mountains above 7000m and glaciers. Sometimes this 3^rd camp is also called the ABC (Advance Base Camp) by the expedition groups. After doing some short-distance hikes you can come back to the 2nd camp. Overnight camp.

Total hiking is 24km on the way back but like before you can hike for 20km and then from EBC you can take the minibus to the tent guesthouse. But 20km hiking is going to walk down all the way to the tent guesthouse. Overnight tent guesthouse.

Since your driving is quite short for today, you can have a free day at Shigatse for shopping and hang around Shigatse. The old town of this city is quite interesting in that you can find different kinds of Tibetan Market, also called the old Tibetan Market. Overnight Shigatse.

You are driving back to Lhasa crossing the same interesting scenes and you can ask for snapping stops. Lunch stop at Nagartse and drive straight to Lhasa. Overnight Lhasa.

Now you are leaving Tibet and you are going to send off by our staff to the train station or Lhasa Airport.