In Eastern Tibet, relatively little visited by foreigners, the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau falls away towards the valleys of three of Asia's great - and roughly parallel - rivers, most notably the Brahmaputra, known to Tibetans as Yarlung Tsangpo.

The Tea Horse Road is an historic caravan trade route from Yunnan in southwest China, westwards through the mountains of eastern Tibet. Chinese traders offered brick tea; Tibetans brought mountain ponies. In modern times this route had been closed to foreigners, but recent reports have indicated that the prohibition had been lifted. Accordingly, Passport Travel of Melbourne assembled an exploratory tour group with the aim of entering Tibet by this route in October 2018.

Our departure by road from Shangri-La, Yunnan, was thwarted at the last minute by the unexpected refusal of the last of a series of permits. However, the dramatic aerial views of snow-capped Himalayan ranges and glaciers from the flight westbound to Lhasa, went some way towards easing this disappointment. Subsequently a road trip out from Lhasa enabled us to cover much of the same ground. Read more.

These images were taken with Nikon D300 using RAW format, and are available for licensing.