from $3,950* per person	13 Days	May
Boutique accommodations		Exertion level: 4
Operator: Geographic Expeditions		18 people max

We created Festivals of Tibet as a bow to our beginnings 28 years ago in a crowded North Face tent up at 16,500 feet in the shadow of Everest. We started out as InnerAsia, grew steadily, branched out to just about every corner of the seven continents, changed our name to Geographic Expeditions, grew lots more, and never wavered in our dedication to introducing people to this heart-expanding, beleaguered, stalwart place.

We offer two versions of Festivals of Tibet. Both editions take us to the Yarlung Valley, Tibet’s “Valley of the Kings,” where the Tibetan nation arose (and where its oldest temple, Samye, has been lovingly restored after being largely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution), and to a couple of days in Lhasa. And both give us some comfortable, well-supported backcountry camping, allowing us to wake in the still, crisp morning, step outside our tent, and bask in the realization of what for many of us has been a lifelong dream.

The Gyantse Pelchoe festival takes place in Gyantse’s great walled monastery/temple complex, the Pelkor Chode, dominated by the huge chorten called the Kum Bum. In his marvelous book Secret Tibet, writer and explorer Fosco Maraini (who visited Tibet with Giuseppe Tucci just before the Chinese invasion in the early 1950s) described the Kum Bum as “a sanctuary not only for the faithful, but for the whole of humanity, for the men of all times and all countries who believe in beauty and bow before the mystery of inspiration.” The annual Gyantse Pelchoe festival, visited by few foreign travelers, is one of Tibet’s most traditional festivals. We’ll bargain with local vendors who flock to this ebullient celebration, and we’ll mix with Tibetan pilgrims who come from far and wide to participate in a fire puja, and enjoy music and marvelously colorful dancing by resident monks.