Yeshi Gyetsa - Founder & Partner
The driving force behind Khampa Caravan is Yeshi, with his breadth of cross-cultural experience and international management experience. He comes from a local family which has been deeply involved in the development and management of this area for generations.

Educated at a top US college, he worked in the financial industry in Switzerland for many years before founding Khampa Caravan. Yeshi began his career with a trading company in New York. He was instrumental in pioneering Sino-American joint-ventures in Tibetan areas, setting up a handicrafts enterprise in Lhasa, and building a resort hotel in Gyalthang. He has also led numerous treks and cultural tours in Nepal and Tibet for renowned international tour operators. Yeshi has two daughters, Uma Gawa (2002), Padme Paro (2006), and is a big soccer fan. Portrait

Dakpa Kelden - Founder & Partner
Dakpa oversees Khampa Caravan's tour operations. His extensive tour-leading and operating experience, and his close relationship and commitment to his communities, is what gives Khampa Caravan its unique signature.

Dakpa spent his early years as a monk in India, undergoing a traditional monastic curriculum. He had a notorious knack for memorizing sutras - while his monk friends fretted trying to memorize the Prajnaparamitha, Dakpa chose to trek for miles to watch Bollywood movies and play cricket.

Following his return to Gyalthang, he worked in the Religious & Cultural Affairs Commission of the Dechen Prefecture (Yunnan). He was involved with Gyalthang’s travel industry from its infant days, going on to manage operations for a major local tour operator. His appetite well-whetted by travel, he went on to study at the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management in Salzburg, and studied English at the University of Oklahoma. Dakpa speaks - and sings - in Lhasan, Kham-Tibetan, Mandarin, Hindi and English. Gifted artist and raconteur, Dakpa has an innate passion for the outdoors. A better travel companion you will not encounter on the plateau.

Lobsang Tenzin - Founder and General Manager
Zealous in caring for all his group members, Tenzin is Khampa Caravan’s crucial link to many of our adventures in the remote regions of Kham and Amdo. Tenzin manages our staff and oversees our trek operations and training of our guides.

From a nomad family in the sacred Genyen valley of Lithang, Tenzin like most Khampas knows the land like no one else and has a remarkable ability in sharing the subtleties and insider knowledge of local culture and the land he lives in. He has travelled widely thoughout Kham and Amdo, first as a loyal attendant to the chief abbot of Genyen monastery, and later as a professional guide serving an international clientele.

Tenzin studied briefly in India, and speaks several eastern Tibetan dialects, Lhasan, Mandarin, and English, and can pull off some surprises when he gets his hand on a good horse. Besides being our in-house photographer, Tenzin is also a self-taught herbalist who is happiest in the wilderness, weathering storms, horse-riding, hunting for herbs or picking mushrooms. Indoors, he is captive to a computer play-station. Portrait

Lobsang Dolma – Manager, Sales & Operations  

Born and brought up in a remote valley tucked deep along the Mekong , Lobsang Dolma’s life took a dramatic turn when she was selected among a handful from Gyalthang to study English at Qinghai Normal University in Xining thousands of miles away. Being the youngest in the family and just a teenage girl at that time, it was a difficult decision to leave the protective surroundings of family, community and loved ones and the familiarity of Gyalthang.

After thinking of the common plight of young girls in her village and the rare opportunity to learn, Dolma and her family decided to take on the challenge. Dolma’s outward journey began one fine morning after hugging her parents goodbye on a long train journey for several days to the big city of Xining . Not knowing what to expect, Dolma was pleasantly surprised to be welcomed into a diverse family of young students from every corner of coming from varied backgrounds and experiences and a desire to learn. 

Dolma would spend four full years in Xining learning, communicating and exploring ideas that she never would have experienced in her hometown. To top it all up, she and her classmates were surrounded by a group of teachers from all over the world who inspired them with new ideas, new subjects and new methods of teaching that taught them to think independently and understand one’s own worth. With classes in sociology, world literature, ethnography and anthropology, Dolma learned to question the existing norms even in her own village such as position and workload of women which deprived them of education.

Lobsang Dolma joined Khampa Caravan in 2006 winter after graduation, her desire to learn is unwavered. Dolma's on-the-job duties duties addressing the communication and service needs of clients from all over the world has been an eye opener. With the hands on experience she has gained over the years dealing with all kinds of issues and problems, Dolma is now the Manager of our sales and operations.

Sonam Geleg – Caravan Leader

Sonam Geleg was born in a little village in Chatreng county and from a very young age was greatly influenced by the staunchly Buddhist culture and the simple values of a small Khampa village. His parents always taught him the virtues of doing the “right” thing – he grew up to become a model child in his little village. 

Upon finishing primary school, Sonam was sent to attend boarding school in where he excelled in his studies learning English and then attending university where he studied commerce. Those formative years at boarding school further defined a young gentleman steeped in religion and prayers and a sincerity and softness rare among rough and tough Khampas. 

Sonam Geleg returned to Chatreng in the summer of 2005 to later join Khampa Caravan as a tour guide. His introspective nature, intense interest in Buddhism combined with his desire to serve has made him an engaging companion for travelers who follow our wide range of itineraries in the Tibetan world.

One of our guides with the “highest mileage” and track record, Sonam’s highlights have been treks into the Salween region, the Khawakarpo range and the ancient caravan route to Lhasa . These long trips requiring delicate team work on the ground cannot be a success without the team spirit and endurance that is naturally imbued in Sonam’s personality. He harkens back the old days when a small team of Khampa muleteers took on the 3-month trek to Lhasa with hundreds of pack animals as a routine rite of passage.

`Numey` Sonam Phuntsok - Driver
Numey is the embodiment of patience and cares for all who sit with him in his van. After almost a decade of truck-driving on the narrow logging trails of Kham and transporting logs to Kunming and Chengdu, he knows the driving terrain in this part of the highlands inside out.

With the government ban on logging in 1998, hundreds of local truck drivers lost their main source of livelihood. After a year of helping out in his fields in Trinyi village and a few summers of mushroom picking, our “younger brother” (that’s what “Numey” means) joined Khampa Caravan in 2003 with an unblemished safety record. He now drives our international guests knowing the twists and turns as well as the great spots where one can catch the best views of the gorges and mountains of which there are plenty.

Numey is well versed in traditional dance and song and has also accompanied clients to many of the remote trekking trails as an assistant cook. When he is given the reigns to cook, Numey can produce the best “Thukpa” (noodle soup) in the wilderness.  

`Adro` Kesang Dhondup - Chief Cook
Hailing from Tari Gyab village adjacent to Lake Napa, Adro has lived to see and do much. He is the real Jack-of-all-trades but has a delightful personality to top it all off.

In the early 1970s Adro was sent to the Salween valley as a laborer on the 156 km road-building project to Gongshan. With the gradual opening of China after 1976, he returned to Gyalthang and opened the first shop in Trinyi village selling basic supplies to villagers.

When the Matsutake mushroom trade took off in the 1990s, Adro was in big demand for his self-learned accounting skills, his hardworking nature and his contacts in the remote villages. A big trader employed him, during which time Adro was commissioned to collect mushroom in Yangthang and Trinyi villages where he had a good community following. However, with the collapse of the Japanese economy, the mushroom trade was also short-lived and by the year 2000, he joined a restaurant run by an Austrian couple in Gyalthang. There, he added many Western dishes such as pasta and some great potato dishes to his already rich repertoire of Tibetan and Chinese cooking.

Adro is notorious in town for his distinguished puffy hair-style and his odd suits. He is also known widely to be an obsessive hygiene freak which is a rare but precious disorder for a Tibetan. When Adro is not trekking, he can be found at his home, gardening or scrubbing the floor. He is married and has a son, Kesang Dorje, who attends Kindergarten.

Senga, Cash Manager
Tucked warmly inside her father’s fur Chuba (Tibetan gown), Senga was brought to Lijiang on horseback by her father when she was barely five months old. She joined her childless and widowed aunt there and remained there until completing her schooling.

Natives of Chatreng, Senga's parents and her numerous uncles and aunts moved around actively with the trade caravans linking Lijiang, Gyalthang, Chatreng and Bathang. In Lijiang the big city, it was thought Senga would find a brighter future than her two sisters back in Chatreng who led hard lives typical of a farming family.

After completing her schooling in Lijiang and then continuing her education at Kangding Accounting School in Dartsedo (Sichuan) in the late 90's, she spent a few years working as a cashier in Lhasa for a government guest house. In 2002, when she was just 22, her father decided it was time for her to return to Chatreng and be married off, still a common fate faced by many girls in this somewhat Macho town. She resisted and instead moved to Gyalthang where she joined Khampa Caravan to apply her cash-management skills and to hone her flair for numbers.

Senga finds it a challenge reconciling the numbers in a field where every little expense is disbursed in cash and often with no receipts to show for them. While she revels in this task, she is also game on sharing her inside knowledge of Chatreng for future tours and trekking programs.