“Responsible tourism is to present exactly who we are, to experience the local’s life with a positive impact. I will always be humble and grateful about my guests who want to see Tibetans in Gyalthang”
Enthusiastic, hard-working, and with a huge sense of responsibility for his local community, Kelsang inherited Khampa Caravan from his elders Dakpa, Yeshi and Tenzin (click) and become in charge of the organization since 2015 with the commitment to continue with the founders aim: Providing responsible tourism that meets the needs of both sides, tourists and villagers, who exchange and treat each other peacefully and with respect.
Kelsang was raised and very much influenced by his great-grandfather Richan Pizu, who in his young days worked at the tea road as a horse man. Kelsang was raised among Richan’s endless and marvelous stories about the tea road, its folk tales and ancient songs. Stories that had a such a strong impact on the young Kelsang, that he became aware of the richness of Tibetan cultural heritage since his early childhood. Kelsang has always embraced the Tibetan ideals of benefiting other sentient beings as a core principle of his behaviour: he dreamed of becoming a buddhist monk when he was a young child, he founded an NGO with the aim to improve the welfare of his local community, and nowadays as the person in charge of Khampa Caravan, he is devoted to, among other aims, to be the first tourist provider of cultural, educational and responsible tourism of Shangri-La.