Review – Snowland Hotel, New Tingri

We stayed in one of many ‘Snowland Hotel’s in New Tingri. There were at least three others within spitting distance from ours – this one is on the corner of the Lhasa-Zhangmu road and the road to New Tingri centre. We stayed in their cheapest room with 5 beds and little in the way of furnishings for 25 yuan per person. As always, there was no hot water or heating and at least two duvets were required to fend off the biting cold during the night (in the morning we woke up to find that the bottle of water we keep next to the bed was frozen!).

Toilets were a bit disgusting hole-in-the-floor affairs long-dropping into a slop room on the ground floor, but are probably typical of this part of the world. Enquiries about showers were met with a chuckle and a firm ‘no’.

The attached restaurant was popular with lorry drivers and other passers-by and served fairly bland but filling Tibetan food for a reasonable price. It was a good place to while away the time until the pass between Tingri and Zhangmu opens as the heat from the oven makes the temperature bearable.

There are supposedly 3-star hotels somewhere in town (although we saw absolutely no trace of them) and it might be a good idea to pay a little extra for some home comforts in this inhospitable corner of nowhere, but by all means come here if you are after the authentic Tibetan experience!

Unrated: it would get 0/10 in normal circumstances, but since it is in the middle of the arse-end-of-nowhere, it is a bit harsh to rate it so poorly. From what we saw, there are no alternatives.