Tour Information
Note: The information presented here is an abbreviated version of our formal General Information for Tours to China: Lhasa and the Tibetan Plateau. Its purpose is solely to give readers a sense of what might be involved if they take this tour. It should not be used as a replacement for the formal document which will be sent to all registrants, and whose contents supersedes any information contained here.
ENTERING CHINA: United States citizens need a passport valid for at least six months from date of departure and a tourist visa to enter China. Visa can be obtained at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China or by using CIBT.
MAP AND COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can view maps of China in the University of Texas series here. You can review the US Department of State background notes on China here.
PACE OF THE TOUR: This is not an easy, relaxing tour. There is a fair amount of traveling, and a couple of the days are long and tiring. Moreover, Huzhu Beishan and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau are both strenuous places to visit. Several of the trails we will explore are steep, and while we’ll walk slowly, the moderate to high altitude makes it easy to become tired. A degree of fitness is recommended.
Sunrise in central Xining in mid-August is at about 6:25 am and sunset just before 8:15 pm. On a clear day, there is usually sufficiently light to bird for 20 minutes before sunrise and 20 minutes after sunset.
Bird activity starts early in the areas that we visit, so we’ll want to be in the field early, occasionally as early as 5:00 am, driving to our first site and having a picnic breakfast. On the day we drive to the Ela Shan Pass, our start will be even earlier, possibly 4:00 am. In Qinghai Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region, and indeed throughout most of China, hotel breakfasts are rather poor, so we will almost always have picnic breakfasts provided fby our ground agent. Picnic breakfasts will usually consist of cereal, yoghurt, fruit juice, instant noodles, biscuits, muffins, bread with jam or possibly honey, peanuts, sausages, and boiled eggs, plus tea and coffee; breakfasts will be supplemented, where possible, with fruit, chocolate, or steamed bread.
On our first morning on the edge of the Plateau, we’ll leave the hotel in Xining early, perhaps as early as 5:00. We’ll drive north to Huzhu Beishan and anticipate a picnic breakfast at the summit of Huzhu Pass around dawn.
Most days of the tour will observe a similar pattern: we’ll leave the hotels quite early (usually around 6:00 am, and earlier as noted above), with picnic breakfasts almost every day and picnic lunches most days. Just before or after dinner, we’ll compile a list of the birds we’ve seen and then retire early (especially when we’ll have an early start the next day).
Occasionally we’ll have two vehicles with us and will try to make as many of our birding excursions as possible optional, so that if you find the pace too tiring it is possible to take some time off and relax. We’ll spend about 24 hours on the train from Xining to Lhasa; while the scenery, the mammals, and the birding can be excellent, for some participants this can also be a chance to catch up on some rest.
HEALTH: At the current time no health certificates are required to enter either China or Hong Kong. The CDC recommends the following vaccines (see your doctor at least 4-6 weeks before your trip to allow time for shots to take effect): Hepatitis A or immune globulin (IG); typhoid, particularly if you are visiting developing countries in this region; and, as needed, booster doses for tetanus-diphtheria and measles. You can review the latest CDC advisories here.
ALTITUDE: Participants should note that this is a strenuous tour, much more so than most of our offerings. Much of the tour is at very high altitude, and we will spend considerable time above 11,000 feet up on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The elevations that we explore range up to a mighty 15,500 feet; by the time we reach these extreme elevations, however, we will already have had a week at high elevations allowing us to adjust gradually, and the stress of the altitude should be muted.
When at such high altitudes, we will attempt to limit our activities, trying to avoid excessive uphill walking and moving at a fairly slow paces. Most altitude problems can be overcome by sitting quietly in or near the vehicle and drinking plenty of fluids. There will be oxygen available in at least one of the vehicles we will use on the tour.
CLIMATE: At the start of the tour in Beijing (and on our return at the end of the tour), it is likely to be fairly warm (up to 90°F) during the day, but the early mornings will be cooler. In both Xining and Lhasa, however, August days will probably be slightly cooler (highs in the 70s or low 80s) and the nights possibly a little cooler still (down to the low 50s). Up on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, particularly when we cross some of the higher passes near Koko Nur and near Wenchuan, it is likely to be considerably colder, especially in the mornings, when temperatures can drop to around freezing. There will probably already be some snow on the highest peaks. Precipitation is scarce throughout the tour but is still a distinct possibility; this may fall as snow at some of the higher elevations that we visit. Precipitation is perhaps most likely on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and at Huzhu Beishan.
DRESS: Informal throughout the tour.
TRANSPORT: Transportation for our time in Qinghai will be in a coach, while around Lhasa we will use a similar but possibly smaller vehicle. We also have a couple of internal flights. Some of the drives may last for up to seven hours, but we will, of course, make regular stops along the way to stretch and to bird.
Our train trip across the Tibetan Plateau from Xining to Lhasa takes 24 hours, and has often been the highlight of our tour. We travel in “hard sleeper” class. The car is divided into about 20 compartments, each with six bunk beds and a small table. We put four people in each compartment, using the upper two beds to store our larger luggage. There is a shared washroom and toilet at each end of the car; usually one of these toilets is Western style, the other Chinese, but this can vary. Warm bedding, usually quilts, is also provided. Better-quality soft sleeper berths (with only four, more comfortable beds per cabin and a sliding, lockable door) are available on this train, but these are extremely difficult to obtain; our ground agent will try to purchase soft sleeper tickets, but this cannot be guaranteed. No private single or double rooms are available on the trains. Sexes are not normally segregated on Chinese trains, but we will attempt to produce an arrangement that suits our group’s configuration.
SMOKING: Many Chinese men, and an increasing number of women, smoke heavily. We will not permit our drivers or locals guides to smoke in our vehicle or in close proximity to the group, but inquisitive strangers may come up to us and smoke nearby. While we can and will ask them not to smoke near us, we cannot keep them from doing so. Though we will eat most if not all of our sit-down meals in private dining rooms, very occasionally this is not possible, and we might have to eat in the common dining hall, where there might be smokers. This does not happen on every tour, but it can happen. None of the hotels that we stay in have designated non-smoking rooms, and our rooms may have been occupied by smoker. The bed linen will certainly be clean and unused, but cigarette odors in the bedrooms are fairly common. This has never proved to be a serious problem on any of our tours, but if you are hyper-sensitive to cigarette smoke it could be.Smoking is not allowed in the vehicles or when the group is gathered for meals, checklists, etc. If you are sharing a room with a non-smoker, please do not smoke in the room. If you smoke in the field, do so well away and downwind from the group. If any lodge, accommodation or location where the group is staying or is gathered has a more restrictive smoking policy than the WINGS policy, the more restrictive policy will prevail.
ACCOMMODATION: Our hotels in Beijing, Xining and Lhasa are of a good standard with private bathrooms, proper restaurants, and other facilities that you would normally expect, such as gift shops in the lobby, facilities for making international phone calls, etc.
The hotels and guest houses that we will use on the rest of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau vary enormously. Most of this region is rarely visited by foreigners, and as a consequence the accommodation, though significantly improved recently, is still often simple. Even in some of the better hotels, many rooms are poorly maintained.
The recently built hotel at Niao Dao (literally “Bird Island”) beside Qinghai Hu (Koko Nur) is still only occasionally visited by foreign visitors. It has recently been refurbished and is now of a 3-star standard. All the rooms are clean, and each has a private bathroom with a western toilet and a shower. We’ll spend two nights there before moving on to a relatively modern one-star guest house at Chaka. The guest house is clean, warm, and fairly well maintained, though the showers often don’t work particularly well.
Please note that at Niao Dao and at a couple of the other hotels and guest houses we will visit, hot water is often not available until after 8:00 pm; it is quite likely that we’ll have dinner and compile our daily bird list before having showers.
After Chaka, our next hotel will be a decent one at Gonghe. All the rooms here have private bathrooms with a sink, western toilets, and a shower; our experience has been that the “hot” water is rarely more than tepid before about 8:00 pm. We will spend two nights in this Gonghe hotel before heading back to Xining.
We’ll have access to a couple of day rooms in a hotel in Xining before taking our overnight sleeper train to Lhasa.
FOOD: Chinese cuisine is well-known and widely appreciated. Beer, soft drinks, and green tea will be served with the food. The Chinese often also drink hard liquor, bai-jiu, with the food. Western brands of alcohol are not easily obtainable outside of the bigger cities on this tour (and where they are available, they are usually expensive), so you may wish to consider bringing your own supply. Alcohol cannot be taken as a carry-on item on internal flights we have in China, but rather must be packed in your checked luggage.
Coffee and English-style tea are still uncommon in China, but hot water is readily available in hotel rooms and in restaurants. Cups are not always provided, so you may wish to bring your own, plus some instant coffee, drinking chocolate, cocoa, or tea bags (and powdered milk and sugar, if you like). Some people also take packets of soup, oxo cubes, or other items to be re-hydrated with water. Chocolate and western sweets are not widely available, so you may wish to bring a supply of goodies to enliven your diet.
Food is almost always plentiful. Few of the restaurants we visit provide knives and forks. If you are not used to eating with chopsticks, we suggest that you start practicng right away or bring your own cutlery.
GENERAL INFORMATION AND CONDITIONS OF WINGS & SUNBIRD TOURS: Please take a moment to read the WINGS General Information and Conditions. This section contains important information about how we conduct tours, e.g., what is included in the tour price, refund and cancellation policies, pace of the tours, and other information that will help you prepare for the tour.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A more complete General Information for Tours to Lhasa and the Tibetan Plateau will be sent to each registrant on receipt of their booking. Final information with instructions for meeting the group, hotel addresses, etc., will be mailed about three weeks before trip departure. Other news will be communicated as necessary. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Updated: September 2010