Tibet runs on the Tibetan lunar calendar, which usually sits about a month behind the Chinese one, so festival dates shift each year by roughly four to six weeks in the Gregorian calendar. Travel dates matter more here than almost anywhere else: arrive during a major festival and the monasteries and streets are transformed.
Losar
Tibetan New Year falls in February or March and is the biggest event of the year. Families clean their houses, bake special pastries, hang new prayer flags and visit monasteries. For visitors the effect is a quiet city for two or three days as businesses close, followed by busy pilgrimage days. Many shops and some restaurants shut, so plan meals and transport around that.
Butter sculpture and the lamp festivals
Butter sculpture is a Tibetan Buddhist art: figures, flowers and tableaux modelled from coloured butter, worked by monks in unheated rooms so that the material stays firm. The pieces are shown at monasteries during the New Year period and at harvest festivals, and the detail at close range is astonishing given the medium. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month comes the Butter Lamp Festival, when lamps are lit across the Barkhor and around temples. The sight of the old town filled with light is one of the best in Tibet.
Saga Dawa and the pilgrimage months
Saga Dawa, the fourth lunar month, marks the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha, and it triggers a month of pilgrimage and merit-making. In Lhasa it means extra pilgrims circling the Jokhang and Barkhor, a great deal of incense and chanting, and the giant thangka ceremony at Drepung during the Shoton Festival at the end of the same season. Note that during Saga Dawa some Tibetan Buddhists eat vegetarian, and many restaurants adjust their menus accordingly.
Practical notes
Festival dates must be confirmed locally each year, since they are set by the Tibetan calendar and sometimes adjusted by local authorities. Foreign visitors need a Tibet Travel Permit arranged through a licensed agency; these take time and can be harder to obtain around politically sensitive anniversaries in March. Book hotels well ahead for Losar and Shoton, and expect monastery opening hours to change on festival days. Photography inside monasteries is normally forbidden during ceremonies.
