Journeying into Tibet (Part 1 - Chengdu and Nyingchi)

Greetings everyone from the World Map Pin community, this is the first time I am sharing in this community. And upon looking at post from my fellow Hive friends such as @relf87 and @curamax, I have decided to share my travels with this amazing community.

Background
This was one crazy trip that I had with a fellow photography enthusiast. 2 man and 2 camera bags loaded with accessories with some luggage and we took our flight out from Singapore to Chengdu. The cover photo is one of my favourite photos taken while moving from Nyingchi to Lhasa.

This trip span across 9 days, with various stops along the way especially at the start of the trip. This is because we will be challenging our bodies to experiencing high altitudes for this trip. From an almost insignificant altitude place in my home country Singapore, the increase in altitude at the highest of the trip will be in Tibet averaging 3800-4000m (highest we experienced in Tibet was near 5000m). And this is why there we have a few intervals before heading into Tibet itself.

The main cities that I went in this trip includes: Chengdu (Sichuan Province), Nyingchi (Tibet), Lhasa (Tibet), Shigatse (Tibet) and Xining (Qinghai Province).

Mode of transport within includes an internal flight from Chengdu to Nyingchi, land cruiser driving through Tibet, a train ride out of Tibet to Xining and lastly an internal flight back to Chengdu before heading back home to Singapore.

The trip will be covered in a few parts due to the activities and the differences of each location during the trip. In today's post, I will cover mainly on the part of the trip where I was doing my altitude acclimatisation. So let's get right on!

Chengdu
Situated in Sichuan province with an altitude of 450 to 700m, this will be the first stop for me and my buddy to start our altitude acclimatisation. We arrived in Chengdu after a 5 hour flight direct into Chengdu around noon. As we did not intend to have intensive activities in Chengdu as compared to a full fledge Chengdu/Sichuan exploration trip, we visited the Kuan and Zhai Alley or in English means Wide and Narrow Alley. This place is well preserved that is left behind from the Qing Dynasty. This is a place to experience the life in Chengdu and also see look at the well preserved historical buildings which includes the Qing Dynasty style Quadrangle Courtyard. For the Wide Alley, which was historically meant for the nobles and high ranking officials with horse carriages was about 7-8m wide while the Narrow Alley was only 5m wide.

The picture below is part of the Wide Alley:

Well preserved Qing Dynasty styled Architecture and garden in Zhai Alley:

Streets of Zhai Alley:

Due to western influence back then, some Zhai Valley architecture had some fusion in both western and Chinese style:

Murals denoting influence of foreign culture into China:

Overall, Kuan Zhai Alley is a nice place to chill and do some light sightseeing while exploring historical architecture and relicts. There are also cafes and eateries located here if you would like to immerse yourself in the culture in the area and talk to the shopkeepers to know more about the history.

After visiting Kuan Zhai Alley, we had some light dinner before heading back to the hotel as we have an early flight to catch to Nyingchi in the morning.

Nyingchi
My buddy and I took an early flight and arrived in Nyingchi, altitude (~2500m). A small city within Tibet. As we travelled from the airport to the city, we came across students heading to school with some younger ones trying to have their own fun before heading to school as they were in their school uniform.

Students heading to school:

Younger students having fun:

"Special" transport to school

Nyingchi is still very much undergoing development but in general a very nice and quiet city. One distinct observation that we can see when we come into Nyinchi is that most things now not only have Chinese signages, there is also Tibetan language on signages as well.

Sightings of less developed spots can also be found in the city giving it some rustic feel. The buildings in Nyinchi is also not as tall as those metropolitan cities. Though something to note is that climbing stairs in Nyinchi is not as easy as it seems in Singapore. The air here is much thinner and 1 flight of steps felt like at least 5. This is why we need to come into Nyingchi for acclimatisation and get used to the higher altitude before we charge into Lhasa.

We took the jeep out in the afternoon slightly away from the city to get some fresh air and we were wowed by what we saw. Fields that were blooming with pretty yellow flowers. The owners of the fields shared with us that the flowers can be pressed for oil which can be used for cooking.

Upclose of the flowers

We then drove through a valley which had a very nice scenic overlook of the whole valley before driving back to our hotel in Nyingchi to rest before heading into Lhasa the next day.

Some notes that I've learn from the trip at this stage:
Get Rhodiola supplements and start taking them 1-2 weeks prior to the trip. This can help combat altitude sickness and acclimatise faster. If we only start taking when we are at the higher altitudes, the effects might not kick in fast enough before altitude sickness kicks in. I will share more about this in the next post.

Closing
And so the acclimatisation portion of the trip completes as we get ready to the main portion of the Tibet trip and also to overcome the first highest ground of 4700m altitude that we will experience even before entering Lhasa, Sejila Mountain, which will be covered in the next post.

Have you ever been to Chengdu/Nyinchi/Tibet? Let me know your thoughts and also your experience if you've been here before.

Thank you for reading my first post in this community World Map Pin! See you in the next where more amazing photos of Tibetan landscapes and the Potala Palace will be shared.

[//]:# (!worldmappin 30.540520 lat 104.080611 long <Embarking in China through Chengdu (450-700 metres) and subsequently into the Nyingchi (~2500m). Chengdu is a good place to acclimatise to altitude prior to entering the Tibetan Plateau > d3scr)