I finally got to meet our Tibetan tour guide, Feng Jun, in Lhasa, Tibet after seven years of planning. I really admire his professionalism and his work as a guide. With well over two decades of experience, he is still deeply passionate and enthusiastic about his job.
He treats every group he takes on tour like they were his very first. Such an attitude needs to be emulated by all newcomers to this industry. On a beautiful day in the month of May, the two of us joined hands to take a group of 15 travel buddies on a road trip across Tibet.
We drove in six 4WDs, starting from the G318 highway and then turning into the 5,000km-long north-south G219 trunk road towards western Tibet. Among the highlights of the route are Mount Everest and the Everest Base Camp, the sacred Mount Kailash, and the uninhabited Ngari prefecture, a destination rarely visited by international or even local tourists. Occupying one-eighth of China’s total land mass, Tibet is perched at an average altitude in excess of 3,000m.
And because of that, the biggest concern among visitors is understandably altitude sickness, in addition to ultra high UV radiation. During the trip, we made our way to the west along the Nepal and India borders. On our left was the 2,500km-long Himalayan range with an average altitude over 4,000m, of which at least five peaks were above 8,000m.
Such extreme topography and dry climate means there is low atmospheric oxygen concentration in the region (15% to 19%; oxygen concentration .
