Enjoy a Horse Riding Tour in Tibet

When you search Tibetan festivals on internet, you will find that there are many festivals in Tibet relating to horse race. Hence, we can conclude that Tibetan people is a nation loving horse riding. For travelers, why not enjoy a horse riding tour in Tibet to remote wilderness of Tibet to explore the hidden interests of Tibet.

 

When you do a trekking in Tibet, you can hire a horse and enjoy a horse riding in the countryside of Tibet. For example, you can do a horse trek around the famous Mount Kailash in western Tibet or around the heavenly Lake Namtso. But it would be more interesting to ride a horse on the grassland in northern Tibet. You know, Tibetan people would hold Horse Racing Festival on the grassland in Nagchu in every August which is the best month to travel to Tibet.

 

The Nagchu Horse Festival is the most important festival in north Tibet plateau. Nagchu is one of the highest, coldest and most windswept towns in Qiangtang Grassland. In this breathtaking spot on the road between Qinghai and Tibet, from August 10-13, more than 10,000 nomads, with their tents, children and animals come to participate and enjoy the colorful Nagchu Horse Festival. A gathering of traders, pilgrims, dancers, gamblers, drinkers, and picnickers, Nagchu is a cultural fair representing a wide range of ethnic and tribal groups. There will be horse racing and acrobatics, dancing and singing at night, and the chang, or Tibetan beer will flow freely. The Nagchu Horse Racing Festival will be held for a whole week in August 2013.

 

Making a Nagchu Horse Racing Festival Tour in 2013, you are supposed to see:

 

1. Thousands of Tibetan nomad spectators.

2. Beautiful horse racing and yak racing.

3. Competitors with well dressed ethnic Tibetan attire.

4. Yaks and horses are well decorated with Tibetan styles.

5. Buying and selling of horse attracts thousands of Tibetans far away from other parts of Tibet.

6. Tradition dancing and performance of Tibetan operas.

7. Well trained Tibetan Herdsmen displays horse riding skills.

8. The grasslands are dotted with tents with full of Tibetan spectators forming a small town for a week.

 

Except Nagchu Horse Racing Festival, Gyantse Horse Racing Festival Tour is also very popular among travelers. This festival is established in 1408 and the farmers and herdsmen from every parts of Tibet gather in Gyantse for horse racing, archery competitions, horsemanship display followed by few days' entertainment or picnicking. These days, ball games, track and field events, tug of war are also playing at the field for about a week. The businessmen from every part of the Tibet display some local products and butter system is still there.

 

What you will see on Gyantse Horse Racing Festival

 

1. Fast running horse competition

2. A well decorated horse.

3. Many horsemen with typical local Ethnic dress up.

4. Hundreds of businessmen displaying the local products.

5. Showing different skill during Archery competition.

6. Hundreds of Tibetan spectators with typical ethnic dress up.

8. You can still observe the ancient butter system there.

9. Thousands of foreign visitors and journalist.

10. Hundreds of Tibetan tents with full of spectators.

 

If you have experience in riding horse, you can ask permission from the owner of a horse to enjoy a different horse riding on the Tibetan Plateau. But be careful.