Detour Around the Himalayas

Since before we departed home, we knew we were likely to have problems with our itinerary in Tibet. The protests in March at Lhasa led to the entire region being closed to foreign tourists until three weeks ago. Our tour agency in Tibet succeeded in acquiring Travel Permits, allowing us to enter to Tibet, just ten days ago. We have now learned that, due to the inevitable reduction in tourists in the region, our flight from Lhasa to Kathmandu has been canceled. This flight allowed us to leave China and drop down in to India very quickly and efficiently.

The only remaining options are: fly Lhasa-Hong Kong-Delhi-Varanasi (expensive and exhausting), re-schedule our Lhasa-Kathmandu flight for two days later (sacrificing flight, hotel and train reservations for the sites we really wanted to see in India), or switch to backup Itinerary B in case Tibet did not re-open to foreign tourists.

We chose Itinerary B. This will take us from Beijing to Delhi directly on the 15th. Then we travel north to Amritsar near the Pakistan border, and further north to Dharmsala. Dharmsala is near the Kashmir region at the base of the Himalayas and hosts the Tibetan Government in Exile. From there, we'll get back on the original itinerary in Varanasi on the 27th.