Hi Ryan and sorry for my late reply! We are currently in Ladakh/India
without any reliable internet access!
But what you can guess now is that we did NOT drive
through Tibet! We were scheduled to enter Tibet on May 5, 2014 and on May
4 we learned that the region around Naqu was closed for tourist
self-drives. There was only one option left: leave our 28 years old Unimog in the hands
of a chinese driver who should drive 1200 km and three 5000 meter passes!
To cut a long story short: we said "no"!
Hence, we are still in India and will drive through Myanmar in November.
From Thailand we will see. Either China (without Tibet) or shipping to
South America.
So to answer your questions: we were dealing with "Chengdu Greatway Tour".
They have all kinds of names depending on your language. If you google
them you will find their website in english.
It was clearly not their responsibility that the Chinese government closes
one region in Tibet. Oh, by the way, two days later they also closed the
region around Mt Kailash!
Anyway, based on our experience with Tibet and based on the experience of
friends of us (a group of three cars) who planned to drive from Nepal
passed Mt Kailash into Kyrgistan (that is the Torugat pass, correct?) and
whose trip was also cancelled I would be very careful with any self-drive
through Tibet. It is not predictable if the tour will happen! What pretty
Certainly works is Laos <-> Mongolia and Laos <-> Kyrgistan.
Hope that helps!
Good luck
Peter