The "Roof of the World", has exerted a pull of almost supernatural proportions over travellers for many centuries. Tibet offers some of the most awe-inspiring scenery in the world, and the sheer scale of the high-altitude valleys, mountains and lakes in which human habitation is but a speck on the landscape is humbling. Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse are tourist-friendly cities with the biggest range of facilities in the region and offer the most amazing monasteries and temples. The Potala Palace in Lhasa remains an enduring image of Tibet in the Western mind and should on no account be missed. The Tibetan people are welcoming and wonderful and while tourism provides legitimacy as well as foreign currency to the Chinese government, many people, the Dalai Lama among them, believe that travellers should visit Tibet to learn all they can of the country and its people.