Visitors are required to fill out a customs declaration form, a duplicate of which must be kept and produced again when you leave. On this document you should list valuable personal possessions such as cameras, electrical appliances, watches and jewellery, as well as the total amount of foreign currency that you are taking into China, and the customs officer may ask to see them when you leave. If you lose either the customs form or any of the items listed on it, you must report the loss to the Public security Bureau. If you are unable to account for missing items you may be liable to a fine when you leave China.

Four bottles of alcohol, there cartons of cigarettes, unlimited film and medicines for personal use may be taken in. Firearms and dangerous drugs are strictly forbidden.

Antiques up to the value of RMB10,000 may be taken out of China as long as each article bears a red wax seal which indicates that it may be exported. You are well advised to keep the relevant sales receipts for possible inspection at customs on departure.

How to go to Tibet Xizang?

1. INDIAN NATIONALS

Indian nationals wishing to travel to Tibet Xizang in China may join:

A. Pilgrimage: Group of pilgrims is organized by Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

B. Ordinary Tourist Group: Tourist group of Indian nationals can be organized by local Indian travel agent with agreement from CITS Tibet (China International Travel Service, Tibet). Group visa may be issued only after the Consulate General has received approval from Tourism Bureau of Tibetan Autonomous Region. 

2. FOREIGNERS

It is advised that foreigners wishing to visit Tibet Xizang may go to other part of China or Chinese Embassy in Nepal first, and then join a package tour after certain procedures of approval.

It is hereby announced that this Consulate General is not authorized to issue individual tourist visas to applicants wishing to visit Tibet xizang in China.

Rich and beautiful Europe experienced a period known as the “Dark Ages” when barbaric methods of torture were used and the inhuman rule that sea-owners had the right to sleep with a female serf before she married her husband was enforced . However similar practices continued to exist in old Tibet for another 400 years.

Despotic Lamas and Nobles

Before 1959, Tibet had long been a society of feudal serfdom under the despotic political- religious rule of lamas and nobles. The masses of serfs in Tibet did not even possess fundamental rights. Serf-owners principally local administrative officials nobles and upper- ranking lamas, accounted for less than 5 percent of Tibet’s population but they owned all of Tibet’s farmlands pastures, forests, mountains and rivers as well as most of the livestock. The serfs making up more than 90 percent of Tibet’s population lived no better than the slaves in the plantations in the southern states of America. The serf-owners could sell or transfer their serfs, present them as gifts, or use them as mortgages payments for debts. They could even ex-change them,molest them or maltreat them. When two serfs got married, the husband and wife still belonged to different owners and their children were fated to be serfs from the moment they were born.

The Weight of a Dead Body

The statutory code of old Tibet stipulated that people were unequal in status by dividing people into three classes and nine ranks. In a peculiar law concerning the value of human life it was written that the lives of people belonging to the highest rank of the upper class such as a prince or leading living Buddha, were calculated to be worth the weight of the dead body in gold whilst the dives of people belonging to the lowest rank of the lower class, such as women, butchers, hunters and craftsmen were worth a straw rope.

The judicial system of old Tibet gave monasteries and serf-owners the right to judge lawsuits. The judicial system itself was characterized by its bloodcurdling system of cruel tortures: punishments issued by the courts were extremely savage and cruel and included gouging out the eyes, cutting off the ears, hands or feet; pulling out tendons; throwing the criminal into water or shutting the criminal into a wooden case lined with nails facing inwards.

These bloody historical facto were displayed in an Exhibition of Tibetan Social and Historical Relics in the Beijing Cultural Palace of Nationalities. Imagine what people thought when they saw the amputated limbs, the flayed human skins and the ghastly torture implemented.

One letter kept in file which attracted much attention. It read:

”Rab Ge:”

A Buddhist ceremony will be held here. We need meat,hearts and blood from all kind of animals 4 human heads, intestines, pure blood, turbid blood, earth from ruins, the menstrual blood of a widow, the blood of a leper, water from beneath the surface of the earth, earth raised in a whirlwind, brambles growing towards the north, excrement of both dog and man and the boots of a butcher. All these should be sent to Tsechykhang on the 27th.

Tsechykhang , the 19th”

From this letter we can imagine how many serfs would have been killed for that single ceremony. In such barbaric and brutal times. Tibet’s economic and social development was out of the question. The economy in Ti- bet had been at a standstill for a long time and was even declining as was the output of grain. Crude wooden ploughs were the basic tools for agricultural production: the primitive method of herding were causing the deterioration of both the pastoralland and the breeds of livestock disease was epidemic and harmful beasts were rampant. The seas were cruelly exploited. They were forced not only into hard labour but also to bear the heavy burdens of corvee and tax. Living in poverty and starvation, they were struggling for existence on the brink of death all year round. In the 1950s, there were more than 4,000 beggars in the city of Lhasa, out of a opulation of only 37,000. The rate was even higher in Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet. Because Of the high frequency of uncontrolled epidemics, the average life-span of a Tibetan was only 35.5 years.

Some visitors may initially encounter some difficulty in pronouncing Romanized Chinese words. In fact many of the sounds correspond to the usual pronunciation of the letters in English. The exceptions are:

   Initials

     C     is like the ts in ‘its’

     Q     is like the ch in ‘cheese’

     X     has no English equivalent, and can best be described as a hissing consonant that lies somewhere between sh and s. The sound was rendered as hs under an earlier transcription system.

     Z     is like the ds in ‘fads’

     Zh    is unaspirated, and sounds like the j in ‘jug’

     A     sounds like ‘ah’

     E     is pronounced as in ‘her’

     I    is pronounced as in ‘ski’(written as yi when not preceded by an initial consonant).However, in ci, chi, ri, shi, zi and zhi, the sound represented by the I final is quite different and is similar to the ir in ‘sir’, but without much stressing of the r sound.

     O    sounds like the aw in ‘low’

     U    sounds like the oo in ‘ooze’

     Ü    is pronounced as the German ü (written an yu when not preceded by an initial consonant) The last tow finals are usually written simply as e and u 

Finals in combinationWhen two or more finals are combined, such as in hao, jiao and liu, each letter retains its sound value as indicated in the list above, but note the following:     Ai    is like the ie in ‘tie’     Ei    is like the ay in ‘bay’     Ian   is like the ien in ‘

In Lhasa, One of the best places to eat is Dunya - it’s run by a Dutch guy and has European/Asian food and wine that can’t be compared to anything else in Tibet . They also do momos and some Chinese dishes, but you’ll be going there for the vege burger or the yak burgers, which are fantastic, or the meze plate, sizzler trays, lasagna, Thai dishes, pizza and the very drinkable house wine. They also do a delicious house salad for those of you craving some fresh greens - the dressing is fantastic. And the bread is all made in-house, best bread in Lhasa . It’s not cheap by Tibetean standards (or backpacking standards but if you’re thinking in US or UK money everything in Tibet is cheap) but it has a great atmosphere and after trekking in the mountains and eating rice and tsampa, it’s nice to come back to Lhasa and have delicious food. It’s on Beijing Dong road, next to the Yak Hotel. They also sell cigars.

Across the road is the Music Bar, a small but friendly place to relax and have a few drinks. Staff are helpful and it’s easy to meet people from all over the world there.

The Yak Hotel has a restaurant on the top floor which has amazing views of the Potala.  You’ll get some great photos, especially in the evening, but the service is rubbish. The food is OK, they do good momos, but you’ll be waiting a long time for them and trying to get change means a staff member has to run all the way downstairs to the reception. Still it is a nice place to chill out looking out over the fabulous mountains.

The New Mandalais a great place in the Barkhor to eat, with views out over the Jokhang. It’s an open air rooftop with awnings over the tables so you don’t get too hot in the summer. It’s a good refuge from the crowded pilgrim trail below and lets you observe all the goings on with a cold drink in your hand and some good Indian food on its way to you. Service is not the best but hey you’re there to relax and soak in the atmosphere so you’ve got all the time in the world.

Snowlandsis another very popular restaurant just off the Barkhor, it can get very busy sometimes in the middle of summer. Food is good, hence all the people, but you can feel that you are eating in a ‘tourist restaurant’.

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