Cancel Your Lhasa Vacation Plans

This morning's IHT headlines,  Security crackdown over vast areas in and around Tibet . Tourism to Tibet had been near collapse, according to The Tibetan Review last week. Now it's shut down entirely.

It's all about the first of a triumvirate of pesky anniversaries for the Chinese authorities this year. Next month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the flight from Lhasa by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, ahead of the People's Liberation Army. The young Dalai Lama left Lhasa on 17 March  1959, with an entourage of 20 men, six of them cabinet ministers, in the wake of a failed uprising (The other troublesome dates are the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square on 4 June and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the prople's republic on 1 October).

Today, on the one hand there's a (seldom updated) web site, The Tibetan People's Uprising Movement, and on the other, the Chinese government, which has called the Dalai Lama, "a jackal clad in Buddhist monk's robes," calls the anniversary "Serf Emancipation Day."

In the run up to next month's anniversary, "Large swathes of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces — home to large ethnic Tibetan communities — are now off limits to foreign travelers," according to the Associated Press. And as for Tibet proper, "'We had a meeting with the tourist bureau and were asked to stop all groups from entering Tibet for at least the next couple of months,' said Wan Feng, at Tibet Yak Travel," as quoted in the Telegraph.

(Photo of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet from the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Comments

[Harper Cosper]

We can all hope that the Tibet situation gets resolved soon. Many faithfuls are quietly anticipating the return of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa. But that will take time and effort from all parties involved. I hope the UN will also mediate a peaceful settlement to end the violence in this mountain paradise.

[Bill]

Thanks, Harper. Looks like you run tours to Tibet? What's the tourism situation there now?