{"id":18124,"date":"2018-04-02T11:13:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T15:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=18124"},"modified":"2021-04-19T11:16:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T16:16:22","slug":"indian-tibet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/indian-tibet\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Tibet"},"content":{"rendered":"

When most people think of <\/span>Tibet<\/span><\/i>, they think of Chinese-Occupied Tibet, which the Chicoms seized in the 1950s, committing genocidal slaughter of two million Tibetans in the process. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the formerly independent country of Tibet is a Tibetan Theme Park for Chinese tourists, locked down tightly by the Chinese military and secret police who control all the monasteries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, there are regions of ethnic, cultural, and geographical Tibet that China was not able to seize. One of them, you read about in February, <\/span>The Kingdom of Lo<\/span><\/i><\/a>, <\/span><\/i>tucked away in a tiny remote corner of Nepal. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Larger than Lo is the Upper Indus River Valley. The Indus rises in the Tibetan Plateau, west of the sacred mountain of Kailas. It flows, or rather trickles, west and widens into a valley geologically unique \u2013 as it separates the Himalaya mountains on the south and the Karakoram mountains to the north. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It then narrows into a series of gorges to wrap around the western terminus of the Himalayas, Nanga Parbat (8,126m\/26,660ft), and flows south all the way to the Indian Ocean \u2013 3,180km\/1,979m from source to mouth. Portrayed on the map, the Upper Indus Valley starts where it flows out of Chinese Tibet into India, and it stops with gorges at India\u2019s border with Pakistan:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The region of the Upper Indus and surrounding side valleys is called <\/span>Ladakh<\/span><\/i>. It is wholly Tibetan \u2013 here you will find real Tibetan culture truly alive and thriving, replete with astoundingly spectacular Tibetan monasteries or <\/span>gompas<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I took the first photo above at the <\/span>Spituk gompa<\/span><\/i> \u2013 the river in the foreground is the Upper Indus, and the snow-capped mountains in the distance are in Chinese Tibet. It\u2019s near the capital of Ladakh, <\/span>Leh<\/span><\/i> \u2013 an endlessly fascinating caravanserai town where you\u2019ll find everything Tibetan. Here are the ancient Leh Palace and the <\/span>Leh gompa <\/span><\/i>hovering high above:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The gompas are many centuries old and house stunning arrays of illuminated <\/span>tankhas<\/span><\/i> (sacred scrolls), wall paintings, scriptures, and gold-leaf statues in the prayer halls. A visit to <\/span>Thikse gompa<\/span><\/i> can be overwhelming.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

As is <\/span>Hemis gompa…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"hermis<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

There are the massive statues of <\/span>Alchi gompa\u2026<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"alchi<\/p>\n

Rizong gompa<\/span><\/i> glued to a cliff\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s <\/span>Lamayuru<\/span><\/i>, the oldest and most magical gompa of all\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Within Ladakh is an even more remote region called\u00a0Zanskar\u00a0\u2013 with the extraordinary\u00a0Zanskar River\u00a0from source to confluence with the Indus over two miles high and\u00a0flowing straight through the crest of the Himalayas. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

To reach Zanskar, you drive over high Himalayan passes with gigantic glaciers below\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

To camp here along with Tibetan nomads and yak herds is a glorious experience\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The ultimate, however, is <\/span>Running the Zanskar, the Grand Canyon of the Himalayas<\/span><\/i> \u2013 one of the truly great whitewater adventures in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a thrill of a lifetime \u2013 but no worries, it\u2019s safe. My son, Brandon, ran it with me when he was 10 years old. Now he\u2019s all <\/b>grown and can hardly wait to do it again.<\/span><\/p>\n

For that\u2019s just what we\u2019ll be doing \u2013 <\/span>exploring Indian Tibet and running the Zanskar in early August<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What we\u2019ll see, learn, and experience is far, far more than this small glimpse in the photos above. This is Real McCoy High Adventure. If you\u2019d like to join Brandon and me, <\/span>click here at <\/b>Indian Tibet<\/i><\/b>, and we\u2019ll send you the info.<\/span><\/p>\n

Click here to get advance notice of expeditions you can join & stunning photos of Once-in-a-Lifetime Adventures<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack Wheeler is the founder of\u00a0<\/b>Wheeler Expeditions<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When most people think of Tibet, they think of Chinese-Occupied Tibet, which the Chicoms seized in the 1950s, committing genocidal slaughter of two million Tibetans in the process. \u00a0 Today, the formerly independent country of Tibet is a Tibetan Theme Park for Chinese tourists, locked down tightly by the Chinese military and secret police who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":18125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[1805,11722,11726,10175,11727,5849,11723,11724,11728,10191,11729,3687,3688,11721,10189,10190,11725,10179,3681,10186],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/image1-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18124"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44621,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18124\/revisions\/44621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18124"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}