INDIAN TIBET
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.
Today, the former independent country of Tibet is a Tibetan Theme Park for Chinese tourists, locked down tight by the Chinese military, and secret police who control all the monasteries.
Yet there are regions of ethnic, cultural, and geographical Tibet that China was not able to seize. One of them, The Kingdom of Lo, tucked away in a tiny hidden corner of Nepal, we go to on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions.
Larger than Lo is the Upper Indus River Valley as it flows out of Chinese Tibet into the remotest part of northwest India. The region of the Upper Indus and surrounding side valleys is called Ladakh. It is wholly Tibetan – here you will find real Tibetan culture truly alive and thriving, replete with astoundingly spectacular Tibetan monasteries or gompas.
I took the photo above at the Spituk gompa – the river in the foreground is the Upper Indus, and the snow-capped mountains in the distance are in Chinese Tibet. It’s near the capital of Ladakh, Leh – an endlessly fascinating caravanserai town where you’ll find everything Tibetan. Here’s the ancient Leh Palace and the Leh gompa hovering high above:











