Bird Island

by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 21 Apr, 2019 | Journeys

This is Chapter 24 from my Tibet memoir in which I walk into the wilderness, stay a night with nomads and find a surprising level of comfort in a cave…

The road into the mountains got steeper and the truck got slower. As we approached the high pass we were crawling along at walking pace. The sky was covered with clouds but at the pass we got a glimpse of the sun before the truck began a reckless plunge down the other side. We were being shaken around so much that I felt we were two dice in a cup. The driver stopped at a lonely truck stop on the other side, at the start of the endless Changtang plateau.

The Austrian stayed at the truck stop and I carried on walking northwards, enjoying the mesmerising monotony of the flatlands. Eventually I was picked up by a bus, a knackered old claptrap, and chugged along the few miles to the next village – where the track to the lake began. I was told it would take two days to walk to the lake from this point on the main road, and it involved crossing a high mountain pass to the west, before dropping down onto another flat plain. There was a lively truck stop in the village where I ate delicious Chinese noodles, chatted to a friendly American couple and found a bed for the night. The Americans told hair-raising stories about travellers who had been savaged by dogs and advised me to take a strong stick in case of attack.

The next morning I was full of energy and, after finding an old axe shaft as protection against the dogs, I set off early. It took half a day to get up the mountain pass, from where I could see the plateau stretching out in all directions, with distant mountain ranges forming a jagged horizon. The lake I was heading for was visible – it looked huge – but after a full day of fast walking it didn’t seem to be getting any closer. I passed some nomads who were skulking around a black woollen tent and noticed that they were dressed in rough fur coats, belted at the waist and reaching the ground. Their huge guard dogs were barking viciously but were held back by ropes tied to stakes in the ground. Tibet was full of barking dogs and Lhasa was full of strays but these dogs were vast and they looked deadly. I wondered what they were protecting the nomads against? Wolves?

By early evening I had covered a huge distance but the lake still didn’t seem any closer. I stopped to rest near a nomad’s tent, not getting too close in case the dogs got angry enough to burst their bonds. The wind grew colder. A young nomad, wearing a one-piece fur belted at his waist, walked by and invited me into the circular tent, which was made of thick black wool. I could see penetrating eyes and when he smiled brilliant white teeth. He took me inside the tent and introduced me grandly to his petite wife and an old woman I presumed to be his mother, and a couple of naked children who were half hidden behind big wooden boxes. Apart from the granny, whose hair was white, they all had long, wild, matted, pitch-black hair. The wife was slim and youthful but there was a strange lump on her lower back, some sort of deformation I assumed. Moments later the lump moved and suddenly a shock of black hair appeared, two eyes, a nose and a mouth: it was a baby, living in the top part of her leather coat, held in place by a tight belt. What a brilliant way of keeping the baby close all day, while allowing the mother complete freedom to move around.

I left my boots and socks outside the entrance flap and stepped onto a mosaic of rugs that covered the whole area inside the tent, except for a little circle in the middle where a small fire burned. There was a hole in the top of the tent where smoke lazily poured out, but much of the smoke lingered and started to penetrate my clothes and hair. Wooden boxes and sacks were stacked all round the outer rim of the tent, forming a barrier against the cold and creating a cosy, cave-life feel in the middle. I wondered why they had so much stuff, what was in those boxes and how did they move them? And surely they moved frequently? They were nomads after all, living in a tent. Did all this stuff go on the backs of yaks?

Around the fire was a circular, narrow rim that was the only clutter-free area. This was where the family moved nimbly around and where we sat. The old woman seemed to be the busiest; feeding lumps of dried yak dung into the fire and shouting at the children. A large loping hound nosed its way into the tent, sniffed at me suspiciously and went back out again. Now that night had fallen, the dogs had been unleashed and were allowed to wander freely, providing a roving security barrier against intruders. The man produced a long wooden tube like a thin barrel, about four inches wide and four feet long. He filled it with hot tea, threw in a lump of rancid yak’s butter and some salt and started to mix it up and down with a long plunger, a stick with a flat round bit at the bottom – making sure that the tea and butter and salt were all mixed up well together. I was licking my lips in anticipation: this was dinner.

Darkness was approaching and I had to make a move: head out into the wilderness and find some shelter, or hope to get an invitation from this lot. I didn’t dare ask about staying the night but I gave my new friend an entrance ticket to the Potala, with a crude sketch of the palace on it, and his face lit up. He placed it on the family altar, alongside a small Buddha and a photo of the Dalai Lama. The old woman handed out bowls with disgusting looking black sausages but I refused mine, sticking to tsampa and tea. The man asked where I was going and when I acted out lake…birds…over there. He jumped up, pulled out a dagger and hacked the neck off a dead goat that was in one of the sacks. He presented me with this bloody, bony, grisly present with a huge smile – I could see it was an act of real generosity – and I wrapped it in a cloth and put it in my rucksack. They hadn’t invite me to stay as they had assumed all along that I would, and when the time came I lay down in my borrowed sleeping bag on a soft pile of dried yak dung and fell fast asleep. During the night I was awoken by a sound and I saw the man hopping nimbly over the clutter and out for a pee. He was stark naked and didn’t seem to notice that it was freezing outside.

The next morning I walked out towards the lake and reached it by the middle of the day. I then realised that Bird Island wasn’t an island at all, it was a peninsula; a huge lump of rock that stuck out of the plateau like a lone thumb. It was surrounded by water on three sides and was connected to the mainland by a narrow neck of land, an isthmus. The lake is called Namtso and it was as smooth as a mirror that day, deep blue and stretched out towards the horizon. An Austrian couple were camping by the lakeside and, hungry for conversation, I went over and sat by them. He was a middle-aged ecologist and I soon bored of his monotonous and rather depressing talk. His girlfriend was half his age, beautiful but not very chatty. This couple were seriously well-equipped and I admired their tent, boots, waterproofs, dehydrated food, rucksacks and cooking equipment, wondering if I would ever be able to afford gear like that. I told them that I didn’t have a tent and he suggested I walk to the other side of the rock where there was a small cave.

From where we were sitting it didn’t look far to the rock, but time and space had assumed a new meaning on this plateau and it wasn’t until evening that I found the cave, which had a rounded entrance hole about a metre off the ground. Even though the sun was going down it was warmer than it had been all day and the rock, which had been soaking up the rays all day, now shared its warmth. It had a soft carpeting of dried sheep dung, considerately arranged on a space that was just perfect to take my sleeping bag.

Some days before, in Yak Alley, the meat market in Lhasa, I had met a scruffy Englishman who had walked across Pakistan and Tibet and was en-route to Australia. His hair and beard were unkempt and he looked more grimy than the poorest Tibetan. His eyes were sparkling and he looked at peace with himself. His feet were black from the home-made sandals he had fashioned out of an old tyre – footwear that had lasted him thousands of miles. We got chatting and he told me that he never needed to spend money as people would give him food and shelter for free:

– Here in Tibet, he said, the people are the most generous I’ve come across anywhere. In the market they give me food – and money. He gave me some advice about cooking that I was now trying out in the cave:

– Take an old tin can and half-fill it with sand or dried earth. Pour in a small amount of petrol, light it and then cook your dinner. It worked perfectly; a small pot of water quickly boiled and before long my noodles were ready.

I was being watched. Outside the cave was a young, weather-beaten face staring at me. I finished my noodles, made some tea – and he was still there, still staring. I wondered if I was the first white man he’d seen? Was this his cave? I could see sheep grazing around him so presumably he was a shepherd. I started to get irritated as I realised that he wasn’t going to leave me in peace, he wasn’t going to be satisfied until I got into bed and it was too dark to see. I had to accept his presence. I realised that living in those tents, in such close proximity to one another, it’s understandable that nomads have no sense of privacy. What was strange about this character was that he made no attempt to communicate; he didn’t say a word, or make any gestures, and this was unlike most Tibetans I had come across. I wondered if this is typical of people who spend their whole lives with sheep and goats. Resigned to his presence, and realising he represented no threat, I made a show of taking out my sleeping bag, making sure he could see it properly, and settling down for the night. Before falling into a deep sleep I listened to the noises drifting across the plateau: animals moving far away and the wind playing strange games in the rocks.

The next morning I explored the area. What I thought had been one big rock at the side of the lake was actually two, looking like massive dinosaur eggs. Most of the part facing the plateau was a low cliff and as I walked towards the lake – about an hour away – I could see that there were more caves, and all sorts of intricate carvings made by the wind. Suddenly I came across two army trucks and a group of soldiers in green uniforms – all Tibetans – eating their breakfast. What on earth are they doing up here? I wondered. Giant crows were circling around overhead, making ominous cawing sounds. The soldiers were as surprised as I by the encounter and they beckoned me over. I didn’t hesitate, making a beeline for the trestle table that was laden with Chinese beer, cooked meats, cakes, fried biscuits and boiled sweets. It was an orgy! They had enough food to last a nomad family for months.

All afternoon I explored the lake side of the peninsula. There was a rocky beach and caves that were inhabited by serious, well-equipped foreigners. Two couples were lying in the intense sun, covered in white sun block cream. All they were wearing was sunglasses. None of them looked particularly friendly. That night I lay on my back on soft, golden dust and watched the stars. The sky was clear, we were at fourteen thousand feet and the stars were far brighter than I had ever seen them before. It was mesmerising.

Back at the cave I noticed that an intruder had been going through my things. My precious biscuits had been half-eaten and my stuff was scattered around. I’ve been burgled I thought, that thieving shepherd bastard! So that was his game! I frantically searched my rucksack and nothing was missing. Someone had told me that nomads are known for their honesty. Of course I realised, it was the sheep, they were the intruders – although they probably consider me to be the intruder as this is obviously their cave.

I spent almost a week up there, wandering around, acclimatizing to the altitude, trying to climb the rocks, relaxing. After a while the intense quality of the place became too much and I felt I lacked the experience needed to truly appreciate all this beauty. Part of me wanted to stay forever but I knew I had nothing to do and that boredom would soon come visiting. Whenever I saw couples who were travelling together there seemed to be a heavy atmosphere between them, as if they were still angry with each other since the last argument. When couples live together in an urban, western environment they both do their own things during the day. Out here they were stuck together all the time and it’s no surprise that they got thoroughly sick of each other.

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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article). To see feedback to the paperback edition, click here.

The travellers’ co-op in Lhasa

by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 20 Apr, 2019 | Journeys

This is Chapter 23 from my Tibet memoir which describes the most unusual Tourist Information Centre I’d ever come across…

Before the end of my first week Lhasa had me hooked and I knew I should stay, settle down for a while and find something to do. The finding of my hat impressed me deeply. I hadn’t expected to find it, since all my experience told me that when something is lost or stolen you don’t get it back. It made me re-think what is and isn’t possible. Could I apply this experience to something that seemed equally impossible, like getting a job? I needed to work, not only to make money but also to give a purpose for my presence in Lhasa.

But what could I possibly do in Tibet? I liked the idea of working on the restoration of a monastery and imagined myself filling in bullet holes that the rampaging Chinese had made in the murals during the Cultural Revolution, but the Chinese are a bureaucratic lot and I knew that I would fulfil none of the requirements even if a job was actually on offer. Also, it was obvious to see that the restoration work was being done by local tradesmen, who seemed to know exactly what they were doing, and the idea of them hiring a foreigner, even a volunteer, would have raised gales of laughter. The only relevant qualification that I possessed was a certificate in the teaching of English but the only experience I actually had was correcting the essays of a student in Vienna.

One of the advantages of being a foreigner in a place like Tibet is that people will let you in where you shouldn’t really be. I would walk into the various hotels and hostels and everyone working there would assume I was just another guest. In one such hotel I found myself in a corridor that was lit by a single light-bulb. Light was coming out of an open door and I looked in to see a large, thin, middle-aged man writing on little pieces of paper. I stood there watching him, noticing the white streaks in his long blond, thinning hair. He stuck one of the little bits of paper onto a small basket with a lid on it. The word STOMACH had been written on the bit of paper with a red marker pen.

I stepped into the room and tried to attract his attention, but he was deeply concentrating on the next label:

– What are you doing? I asked. He glanced up with a look of annoyance; I had interrupted him.

– I help foreigners who get sick or need help, he snapped in an upper class English accent. Was he some kind of doctor?

The next day I returned to the same room and the scene had changed: there was no sign of the man with the long thinning hair but there was a lady talking fast in an English accent to a room packed full of foreign travellers. I also noticed that the room was lined with shelves, each one full of books. What was this place? The foreigners were bombarding the lady with questions about travelling in Tibet and nobody noticed as I squeezed through and found somewhere to sit on a disused bed. She was middle-aged, and kindly looking, with long blonde hair, spectacles and faded flower-power clothes. She was talking loudly to the assembled mob about monasteries, opening times, prices, bus tickets, routes and what to do about diarrhoea.

I wasn’t interested in any of this information but I found the whole scene bizarre and fascinating and realised that she was running some sort of information centre. I listened carefully to the endless flow of information and joined in one of the conversations, involving five people, and managed to steer it in the direction of finding work locally. She explained in an aside that she was an underpaid, overworked English teacher in Lhasa and I popped the question:

– Any English teaching jobs?

– No, and there are unlikely to be any in the future but if you leave your name on a bit of paper we’ll get in touch if anything comes up.

Back at the Pemba truck stop things were getting chaotic. Now that the hot summer weather was over the real pilgrim season had begun, and crowds of tribesmen were turning up on overloaded lorries, many of whom would appear at the Pemba demanding a bed for the night. The din at midnight was incredible and I remembered how noisy my brothers and I had been after moving into Edinburgh from the Scottish countryside; people with no neighbours have no concept of keeping the noise down. Somehow I managed to sleep. The Hong Kong group were bristling with irritation and I could tell that they didn’t find these newcomers as interesting as I did; they obviously saw them as a noisy rabble. When they started complaining to the manager about the noise and the filth I started to distance myself from my former allies.

My dreams became powerful and vivid. I dreamt that my skin had been destroyed by fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, an event that had shocked the world a few months earlier. A vile apparition – a skinned camel – appeared in my dreams as an argument raged nearby and doors were slammed. I admired the audacity and freedom of these Tibetans but realised that, as a foreigner, I was at a great distance from them. In my dreams I rode with them across the prairie and shared their wild women.

I would recover from the chaos of Pemba by spending a bit of time every day in the middle-class calm of the travellers information centre – a place that was known as The Travellers’ Co-op. I persisted in hassling the talkative blonde, whose name was Isabella, about a teaching job and she introduced me to an old American professor called Robert Morse – a Tibetan scholar, polyglot, veteran world traveller and English teacher at Tibet University. He explained that Tibet University was a very new creation; it was small, underfunded, badly managed, had very few students and the two English teachers were recruited in Beijing. At last I felt like I was making some progress, finding out some information, sowing seeds. If I was patient and persistent things would work out.

The ongoing drama at the Pemba took a new turn when the irate manager and his harem of rent-collecting women appeared in the dormitory early one morning and ordered the Hong Kong group to leave immediately. The beefy women moved in on their rucksacks, with every intention of throwing them into the street, and the Hong Kongers leaped up, screamed hysterically and started struggling with the women for the possession of the baggage. I was watching all this from under a dirty sheet, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, hoping I wouldn’t get the heave too – and with absolutely no intention of helping. Pandemonium reigned but the Tibetan women were winning and the Hong Kong group were gradually forced out of the room, with sleeping bags trailing after them. Suddenly my sheet was roughly ripped off and I was exposed; fingers were pointed and a volley of abuse hurled my way but I stayed put and for some reason they didn’t grab my rucksack, hurl it down the stairs and order me out. The woman standing over me was called over to the main struggle which was now taking place on the staircase. They never came back for me.

That same night a violent storm hit Lhasa and, with four windows overlooking the town, I was ideally placed to observe it. Bolts of lightning lit up the landscape and the roar of thunder, echoed by the surrounding mountains, was louder than anything I had ever experienced. It rocked the building and shocked all the noisy pilgrims in the room into a timid, cowering silence. Torrential rain was hurled against the windows with a demonic fury that seemed intent on destroying us. The wind tore at the roof and battered the windows until one of them exploded in fragments of glass. Energised by the storm, I moved from window to window to get the best view. The street outside had become a river and water was pouring off our roof in furious, spitting arcs, from gutters that were extended about a metre from the edges of the roof. Water was spraying through the broken window and nobody else was making a move to stop it so I found a blue cotton sheet and held it to the window to try and stop the rain pouring in. I got soaked immediately, as did the sheet, and the wind seemed to grab and shake me as if I were a rag doll. Floods had formed all over the floor and other windows were being burst open. We were helpless.

As the storm reached the height of its fury a huge lightning bolt, far thicker than anything I had seen yet, shot down. Unlike the other lightning bolts, this one didn’t go into the ground; it shot back up towards the clouds and formed a massive u-shape in the sky. The whole landscape was brilliantly illuminated for about half a second. The image that was forever burned into my retina was the building directly under the u-shaped bolt of lightning: the Potala Palace, revealed for a moment in a mosaic of gold and red and white colours, a massive fort-like structure that was sitting on its own little hill.

The following day I was surprised to see that the city was still intact and not much damage had been done. I felt we had survived an aerial bombardment, but the Tibetans were going about their business as if nothing had happened at all. Presumably they were used to this kind of weather and I wondered what a big storm meant for them spiritually; their temples were full of demons and dragons and I imagined we had met one of them the previous night.

Lhasa was becoming surprisingly hectic and I needed some silence. I became more aware of time: my visa was running out and if I didn’t make a move soon there wouldn’t be enough time to reach Shanghai, or see anything more of Tibet. I had done my best to find a job but was under no illusions that I could actually get one. Where could I go and visit? I should try and see some of Tibet before leaving. I started asking the travellers, all of whom were keen to share their knowledge. There seemed to be two main options: the Everest Base Camp, back down the road I had already travelled, and a big lake up north. The Everest option seemed too touristy so I opted for the lake which was on a huge plateau populated by nomads. I borrowed some camping equipment and walked out of town.

Unlike the road I had travelled along from Kathmandu, the road north into China was paved with tarmac. It was also full of military convoys: lines of trucks, each one packed with soldiers or covered in green tarpaulin; none of whom ever stopped for me. Lhasa is located on a narrow strip of flat land but it is surrounded by mountains and once you cross these you reach a high plateau that stretches out into the horizon. They call this plain the Changtang, the Northern Plateau.

Other foreigners were heading out of town that day and I was determined to get ahead of them so I marched as fast as I could, across the short plain and into the hills. Eventually a flat-bed truck stopped and I climbed up, noticing that a middle-aged foreigner had already installed himself. I stood on the tailgate for a while, holding the metal bar, feeling the wind on my face and enjoying the fact that I was on the move again. Then I went to talk to the foreigner, an elderly Austrian:

– Nettles, he said, are the only survivors in this area of overgrazing. There are no wild flowers up here anymore and the grass is disappearing. The Chinese have doubled the population of yaks and this fragile ecosystem can’t take it. Soon there will only be dust.

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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article). Click here to see feedback to the paperback edition.

The trucker’s mate had a sword

by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 14 Apr, 2019 | Journeys

The next morning I set off early and within an hour reached the massive turquoise lake I had seen from the hilltop the previous day. Some time later an old truck rattled past and ground to a halt ahead. It had big rounded wings at the front, in the pre-war style, and a windscreen made up of two separate panes. It was probably based on a German design from the 1930s. One of the travellers had told me that the Russians had stolen entire factories from Eastern Germany after the Second World War, sent them into Russia by train and, in some cases, passed them onto the Chinese. Was that why pre-war German truck designs seemed to be the order of the day in Tibet?

A tough-looking Tibetan jumped out of the truck and sauntered over to me. He was dressed like a warrior from a children’s fairy tale book: strange boots, tribal hat, black cloak and a big sword strapped to his waist.

– Lhasa, he said with a smile, pointing east.

– Yes, I go to Lhasa.

– Twenty yuan.

– Twenty yuan? I said with a sense of shock. Two quid! I could fly for that price. I knew this was what they charged foreigners and was far higher than locals paid.

– Five yuan, I offered. The warrior laughed as if I had told a hilarious joke, then started acting out how good the truck was and what a great driver his friend is. The driver wandered over and stood there meekly. Unlike most truckers, this pair weren’t in a hurry.

– Fifteen yuan, they offered, making it clear this was their final price. I walked off in disgust, in the direction of Lhasa. Some minutes later the truck appeared alongside, going at walking pace, and the grinning warrior stuck his head out the window and shouted:

– Ten yuan.

Having strapped my rucksack onto the top of the vast pile they were carrying in the back, I took the seat by the window, admired the lake and felt quite at home, as if I had earned my place among them. The Khampa took on the role of court jester and a good atmosphere soon developed. He kept telling me he was a Khampa as if I should know what this was and be in awe of him. The more I shrugged in incomprehension the more he tried to explain. When I took out my map he jabbed at the eastern part of Tibet and kept repeating Kham! with a look of pride. Aha, the penny dropped: Kham is a region and the Khampa are a people! From the way he was talking I guessed that Khampas look down on the rest of Tibetans and I wondered if they were similar to the Sikhs of India, a proud warrior people who live in the Punjab and don’t think much of the rest of the population. It was obvious that the Khampa couldn’t drive but he had put himself in charge of the truck and the Tibetan driver.

At the end of the big lake the road started climbing and I looked up and saw that it went up for mile after mile and that we had to cross a massive mountain pass, bigger than anything I had crossed thus far. I wondered if this overloaded heap would make it but one of the great things about hitching is that you don’t need to worry about the reliability of what the Americans would call your ride. If it breaks down you just get out and walk. I was heading to Lhasa and I was grateful if any vehicle – truck, jeep, tractor or cart – could take me just some of the distance. Getting a lift was doubly satisfying because I would be moving in the right direction and getting a rest. Just before we started the long climb we stopped by the lake and the Khampa strode down to the waterside with a bucket, filled it up and poured it into the truck’s radiator. Clouds of steam rose from the engine. I started to skim stones and wondered why the lake looked so ordinary from close up but when seen from afar it had an incredible turquoise colour. I took the bucket from the Khampa, filled it up and drank as much of the gritty water as I could, assuming there would be no water up the mountain.

The engine started with a roar and a cloud of exhaust smoke, the gears were crunched into first – and we were off. A few minutes after starting the long climb the engine stalled and we ground to a halt. We all got out. The driver lifted the bonnet, swearing continually, and studied the engine with a look of fury. I realised that the carburettor was the guilty party and I watched in fascination as the driver gave it the kiss of life: he took a swig of petrol from a filthy bottle he had in the cab and squirted the fuel inside a thin fuel pipe he had disconnected. I could see the carburettor filling up with yellow fuel and clear bits of saliva. I felt sick at the sight of this and took a swig from the bucket that was hanging from the side of the truck and still had some water in it. I offered some to the driver but he wouldn’t drink. He stank of petrol for the rest of the day.

An hour later we were on the move again, chugging upwards. It took half a day to reach the mountain pass and the view of the turquoise lake, and the bottomless drop below us became ever more spectacular. At the top we stopped for a leak and then began the steep, twisted descent. Surely he was going too fast? Did the brakes work? Would I be able to leap out if disaster struck? What about my rucksack? Suddenly a truck appeared in front of us, in the middle of the road. The driver reacted quickly, showing none of the sickening panic that was welling up inside me, and veered towards the abyss. I closed my eyes and waited for the plunge, and then opened them and everything was back to normal. Joy surged within me after this brush with death. I was alive!

When we reached the valley floor we drove alongside a huge river. I looked at my pocket atlas and identified the Tsangpo, which flows all the way across Tibet, getting bigger all the time, and finally drops down into northern India where it becomes the Brahmaputra River. This mighty river goes through Bangladesh, joins the Ganges and empties into the Bay of Bengal.

It was evening and we stopped at a roadside shack that served food. The Khampa ordered something to eat from the Chinese cook, who threw her hands towards heaven and launched into a tirade. I didn’t need to know Chinese to understand her message: no food. The Khampa went into the kitchen and entered into a shouting match with her. Five minutes later he emerged triumphant, carrying a tray full of strange looking biscuits. They were greasy, rock-solid and sugary and he insisted that I eat. I tried one but it was so vile that I couldn’t get it down. Further discussions followed and it was decided that I would sleep on a grimy bench in the cafe, for a cost of five yuan, and they would sleep in the truck. I wondered if they would sneak off in the night but I was too tired to care.

The following day the road became real asphalt for the first time since I had entered the country, and it felt strange not hearing the endless rattling sound of truck on gravel and the rhythm of constant bumps. Presumably we were getting near to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. There were scores of villages, cultivated fields and military bases. At one point we passed a new bridge, guarded by a soldier in green, standing motionless by his little sentry box. The Khampa started acting out an aeroplane and pointing over the bridge; presumably an airport was located across the river. The closer we got to Lhasa the more miserable I felt; I didn’t want to end this journey. I had got used to being with people like this and I liked them, I wasn’t ready for a big city and I had no idea what I would do when I got there. Maybe I would just keep going onwards to Shanghai? But shouldn’t I see more of Tibet? The weather was warm but cloudy and I dozed in the truck, feeling like a schoolboy in the morning, saying to his mother: just a few minutes more.

Now that we were on luxurious asphalt the truck had picked up speed. Lhasa was approaching fast and my companions seemed pleased with the prospect. I was missing the wilderness and wishing I had spent more time in it, wondering what I would need in terms of equipment if I were ever to go back. Suddenly the Khampa shouted, pointed towards the left and the driver turned off the main road and bumped along a gravel track towards the foot of a huge mountain. The Khampa became animated as he was trying to explain where we were going, but I understood nothing.

The truck parked in front of a huge monastery that was surrounded by a high whitewashed wall. The Khampa hurried me out of the cab and insisted I follow him into the compound. The driver stayed where he was, pulled his cap over his eyes, leaned back and seemed to fall asleep in an instant. The atmosphere inside the high wall felt strangely intimate and quite different to how it was outside. Young monks stood around in purple robes and shaved heads. They had grins on their faces and were far more welcoming than I had imagined they would be. We entered the main building to the sound of monks chanting and I noticed the musky smell from hundreds of butter lamps. I fell into step behind the Khampa and watched him perform a series of rituals – kneeling and chanting and touching his brow on the floor – in a way that was practised and natural. Gone was the happy-go-lucky persona I had come to know in the cab, the bandit-warrior image he projected. Here was a gentle, warm and spiritual person. Some of the monks seemed to know him and they offered him some strange-looking cakes. The Khampa introduced me with a sense of pride and soothing words of welcome were said. I felt that I was being blessed.

Back at the truck the Khampa gave me one of the cakes and I tasted it. Yuk! I could taste sour milk and the dusty barley flour the Tibetans eat, and it had a disgusting sticky texture. But it seemed disrespectful to reject such an offering, after all it came from a holy man in a monastery, and the Khampa seemed to be enjoying them. When his back was turned I threw mine into the dusty roadside. We woke up the driver, hopped back in and drove back to the main road and the river that seemed to follow it everywhere. My companions were humming with pleasure, unable to contain their glee and I supposed that Lhasa was their hometown.

Suddenly the Khampa shouted Lhasa and pointed ahead, but I couldn’t see anything: just a narrow plain and surrounding mountains. Then I started to notice ugly, low concrete buildings everywhere and vast numbers of soldiers. Lots of questions came to me: Is this city populated by soldiers? Do they live in those concrete bunkers? Isn’t there an old part to this city? As if in answer to my question I could see an old building, a huge white building, sitting on top of a little hill. Potala! Potala! shouted the Khampa, pointing to the vast white palace that stands over the whole city, an image that seems to be on the cover of every guidebook to Tibet. It didn’t look so impressive from where I was sitting; there were too many featureless new buildings cluttering up the foreground.

We drove into the centre of what looked like a very ordinary little town and the truck stopped. The Khampa put his two hands to his ear, bent his head to indicate sleep and pointed down a side street. He was obviously saying that’s where the hotels are for you foreigners. This is where you get out. I didn’t want to go but neither of them looked too sad at the idea. I handed over some banknotes, got out and said goodbye glumly. The truck drove forward, unusual in that it didn’t produce any dust, and I walked around the unimpressive centre looking for somewhere to stay. Eventually I ran into some bronzed westerners who pointed me towards what they called the Guest House Ghetto, where I reluctantly settled in with a crowd of Hong Kong Chinese, Japanese and western travellers.