Chinese Tour Groups

My g/f (Chinese) and I are planning a trip to tea bet next month.  I've read up on the permit purgatory and made some calls, but am stumped by something. The Chinese tour groups are not allowing laowai to travel with them.  Telling us that we have to take a foreigners' tour group because the places the Chinese group visits are off limits to Americans. The verboten place they keep mentioning is the Brahmaputra River area.

Everything I've read so far suggests that a T Travel Permit and an Aliens Travel Permit will cover about anything we want to see.  The Military Permit doesn't seem necessary, but possible.  

With all of these permits in hand, does the reasoning of the Chinese tour guide agencies make any sense?  I'm seeing tour offers in the U.S. to go specifically to Brahmaputra, so it is obviously possible.  I'm guessing that the tour guide industry stands to make more money by charging more for the "foreigners" tour.

My guess is that they don't want the hassle of dealing with a big nose. They probably can't offer a hotel, English speaking guide, and they most likely already hate you. If you are American, that last point is compounded

Last I checked, foreigners had to join a special tour group that included people of the same nationality. This, of course, makes it very difficult for people who have partners of a different nationality. Unless this regulation has changed, that is probay what you're running up against. I don't really think this is a case of tour agencies being greedy, just that the regulations for Chinese people and foreigners visiting T are very different and foreigners must take part in an official foreign tour in order to get legit permits.

I've taken part in (regrettably) several Chinese tours before. Usually they don't have a problem with a foreigner tagging along. T is special.

Thanks, LD.  That seems to be it.  I knew I need to go with a group, but did not know it could not be a Chinese group.  Of course, this does not jibe with the tour group company's explanation, but no surprise there. So, I start over.

A-Train, the Lonely Planet's Thorntree forums seem to have the most up-to-date info regarding T'b't travel. I would check in there first. I think they have an ongoing permits thread stickied at the top of the China board. I don't visit those boards much but when I'm heading for unknown territory that's usually the first place I check.

Depending on whether things cool down over the next few days or not it might not be a great idea this time around, but if you want a place that where you and your gf can have equal access and you're after majestic scenery you might try Xinjiang. No permits needed for foreigners and the mountains out by Kashgar are just breathtaking.

Oddly enough, I hit three similar speedbumps this weekend in HK.  You would think that if there was one place in the world that didn't really care about who you were and where you were from, HK would be it.

First, the HK visas for her parents would only let them enter HK as part of a tour group.  Conveniently, there was a tour group podium that was happy to escort them through the Chinese exit line - for 50 RMB each.  Naturally, the HK entry people didn't care, so this one isn't HK's fault.

Second, my lovely wife pre-purchased access to Sky100.  She ran down to trade the vouchers in for the tickets - and told me to wait, since these were only for mainland Chinese and the people at the ticket counter might notice that I don't exactly look very Chinese.

Trading in pre-purchased vouchers for Lantau Island cable-car tickets required an ID from everyone to make sure none of us were HK ren.  Lucky that we were planning to head to the airport and grab a limo back to DG after that or else all the IDs would have been back at the hotel.

I've only done day tours within a city in China, and never had any issues with mixed groups.  Haven't tried to do any sort of multi-day thing.  If the experiences mentioned above are common, I think I'll skip trying.

I know that the hostels in Chengdu are good at setting up tour groups for foreigners. Last time I was there they had "group of one" where they could go through some loophole to basically get you into tea bet legally but not actually part of a group. But I know that the rules there change constantly, depending on the situation so it might be harder these days.

Anyway, if you can get to chengdu I think you will have more options since so many people use it as a jumping point (and a slight climate acclimatizing point. I was told that coming from zhejiang, aka sea level, I would have to go to sichuan first for a few days before moving on to tea bet because otherwise I would have major oxygen problems.

Thanks, I'll try Chengdu.  Our plan was to spend a couple days in Xi'ning and then take the train.  Half the time and more interesting than from Beijing and the acclimatization is effective.  Seems to be many sites to see in Xi'ning as well.