OVERLAND TO LHASA

Day 3 Naqu to Lhasa

On our third and last day’s ride into Lhasa, the road improved and we covered 330km over 5hours. From Naqu onwards the bleak and desolate Qinghai plateau is replaced with pastoral scenes of sunny valleys and running streams. We start to catch glimpses of colour - valley floors golden with rapeseed wheat and maize, hill slopes dotted with clumps of mauve, pink and blue wild flowers and of course black yaks, white goats and wild ponies. Footbridges over streams are festooned with prayer flags, medieval Tibetan farmhouses with flat roofs and square cut windows are hung with bright strips of cloth, while electric wires compete with prayer flags which fly like ship’s mast from every Tibetan homestead. It gets to look more and more like God’s own country and it is not for nothing that Tibet is known as the Holy Land.

Where beauty walks in God's own country

Stopping by the Yangbajing Hot Springs we are an easy 91km away from Lhasa.

Yangbajing Hot SpringsAs we approached the Holy City we felt charged by energy from the sun. Lhasa is also known as the City of Sun with 3000 hours of sunlight annually and the intensity of the sun is like nowhere else on earth. Bathed in this radiance we follow the tree lined road until the golden roofs of the Potala Palace told us that we had arrived.

Potala Palace, the essence of dreams

Route Map