Lhasa

Lhasa sits at about 3,650m on the Tibetan Plateau, far from any coast, and has no swimming culture at all. The Lhasa River is cold and fast, and the great lakes within reach, Yamdrok and Namtso, are icy, high and sacred, places to look at rather than bathe in. Anyone who wants to swim will need a hotel pool.

Eating in Lhasa means Tibetan staples: momos filled with yak meat, thukpa noodle soup, tsampa made from roasted barley flour, yak yoghurt, and salty butter tea poured as a sign of welcome. The most memorable experience is the sweet tea house, a long room of benches where locals sit for hours over thermoses of milky tea and bowls of noodles. Around the Barkhor there are simple Tibetan kitchens, Nepali-style cafés serving travellers, and plenty of Sichuan and other Chinese restaurants in the newer parts of the city.

It is honest, warming food suited to the altitude, but the range is narrow, fresh vegetables are limited, and there is little fine dining. Curious eaters will enjoy a few days of it rather than come for it.

Few cities have a single building as overwhelming as the Potala Palace, the former winter home of the Dalai Lamas, its white and red walls climbing a rock above the city. Below it, the Jokhang Temple is the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism, ringed by the Barkhor, the old quarter where pilgrims walk clockwise all day spinning prayer wheels and prostrating on the flagstones. Together with the Norbulingka summer palace they form a UNESCO World Heritage site.

On the edge of the city stand the vast monasteries of Drepung and Sera, whitewashed hillside towns of chapels and assembly halls; at Sera the monks hold lively debates in a courtyard most afternoons. The Tibet Museum adds context. The set is small enough to see in three or four days, and the living devotion around it is what stays with visitors.

Lhasa is an early-to-bed city, and the altitude makes most visitors happy to keep it that way, since alcohol hits harder at this height. Evening life is mostly a stroll around the lit-up Barkhor, a meal and a beer in a traveller café. Locals go to nangma halls, part bar and part dance floor, where Tibetan pop and group dancing run late, and to karaoke rooms in the newer districts. There are a few small bars, but no club scene to speak of.

The landscape is the high plateau at its most stark: a broad valley of the Lhasa River ringed by bare brown mountains, intensely blue skies and thin, dry air. Gentle walks start in the city itself, such as the pilgrim circuits behind Drepung and Sera that climb to prayer-flag-strung ridges with wide views. Further out, the road over the Kamba La pass drops to Yamdrok Lake, a vivid turquoise lake with snow peaks behind it, and Namtso, even larger and higher, makes a long excursion or an overnight.

What holds it back is how you can use it. Acclimatising takes days, serious trekking needs a guide and planning, and winters are cold and windy. Late spring to early autumn is the best time, when the grass greens and the passes are open.

The day trips from Lhasa are monasteries, and some are extraordinary. Ganden, the great monastery founded by Tsongkhapa, spreads across a mountain bowl about an hour and a half east, with a pilgrim path circling the ridge. Drak Yerpa is a cluster of meditation caves in a cliff closer to the city, Tsurphu is the historic seat of the Karmapas up a quiet valley, and Samye, Tibet's first monastery, sits in sandy country to the south-east, a full day there and back.

The variety is limited: these are religious sites rather than towns, and the old towns of Gyantse and Shigatse are too far for a day. Most outings are made by hired car with a guide.

Lhasa is a hard place to bring young children. At about 3,650m altitude sickness is a real danger, and children can struggle to say how they feel. The main sights involve long climbs, such as the steep stairs of the Potala, and dim, smoky chapels where quiet is expected. There are no attractions made for children, and medical care is basic outside the main hospitals. Older, robust teenagers with an interest in Tibet can find it fascinating.

The heart of Lhasa is compact: the Barkhor, the Jokhang and the Potala are all within walking distance, and the old quarter is best explored on foot. The difficulty is the altitude, which makes even gentle walks and stairs exhausting for the first days. Taxis and city buses reach Drepung, Sera and the Norbulingka easily, and pedicabs work the old town. Anything beyond the city is done by hired car with a driver and guide, rather than by public transport.

The shopping worth doing is around the Barkhor, where stalls and small shops sell what pilgrims and visitors buy: prayer flags, prayer wheels, incense, butter lamps, turquoise and coral jewellery, Tibetan knives, yak-wool shawls and painted thangkas. Some workshops still make thangkas and carpets by hand, though plenty of the stock is mass-produced, so it pays to look closely. Beyond the old quarter, the newer city has ordinary Chinese malls and department stores with little a visitor needs.

Day-to-day costs in Lhasa are low: Tibetan meals, tea-house noodles, taxis and simple guesthouses are all inexpensive. What raises the bill is how a trip here is put together. Foreign visitors generally travel with a licensed guide, every excursion needs a hired car, and the headline sights charge substantial entry fees, so the overall cost of a stay ends up mid-range rather than cheap. Hotels also cost more in the summer high season.

Lhasa's most distinctive performance is Ache Lhamo, Tibetan opera with masks and bright costumes, staged most famously at the Norbulingka during the Shoton festival in late summer. Outside that season the offer is thin: nangma halls with Tibetan song and dance, large staged spectacles aimed at domestic tourists, and the chanting of monks at morning prayers, which is moving but not a performance. There is no regular theatre, classical or live-music scene.

Lhasa has no bathing culture of its own, and the altitude, with its headaches and poor sleep in the first days, works against relaxation. What it does offer is a contemplative rhythm: walking the kora with pilgrims at dawn, sitting in a monastery courtyard, or passing an afternoon in a sweet tea house. Traditional Tibetan medicine is practised and taught in the city, and a few hotels run spas. The hot springs at Yangpachen, a couple of hours north-west, are the nearest place to soak.