China - Tibet

We arrived in Lhasa and after collecting our luggage made our way to check in for our connecting flight to Beijing. After numerous checks with various forms of security, and our passports disappearing for a while, they were actually going to let us leave the airport and into Tibet.

01 Flight over Tibet

We couldn't believe it!

We had wanted to go to Tibet but had to change our plans when it looked like the combination of visas, permits and 'programmes' would be too expensive (see the previous entry). Now it turned out we didn't need any of it and we could have just left the airport with less hassle than those people with the correct paperwork who were stuck with security trying to get through!

02 Flight over Tibet

Unfortunately we had our connecting flight and no time in between the flights to venture out and see a bit of Lhasa.

So, we wouldn't recommend trying to get into Tibet without the advised paperwork but it was frustrating that we could have done it. Perhaps we were just lucky and other people would be stopped. Or perhaps we would have been pulled aside on trying to leave Lhasa - but it was a shame we couldn't take advantage of our free access to Tibet!