As day dawned, the mist hung in delicate trails over the town in the valley below the house. We clattered out of the yard in the jeep, loaned by the mayor, as Annay waved at the gate and Ama-Io-lun called after us, in a tiny voice, 'I will look for your return.' Tsedup and I were taking my parents to Labrang, the site of the biggest monastery in Amdo, where we would say goodbye to them. Amnye had set off before dawn on the local bus. He was a local councillor who represented the nomad tribes. There was a meeting in Gannan or Hezou, as the Chinese called it, the county's seat, which was only two hours away, so he said he would join us in Labrang later that day. That was the plan, anyway.
My father had never been a good back-seat passenger; he had also never been in the metal box of a Beijing jeep. As we bounced on the rusty springs, trying not to hit the roof, negotiating precipitous, blind bends high up on the passes, he muttered expletives under his breath. I had to laugh. But it was no laughing matter when we stopped at one of the small towns on the way.
It was just another dusty Chinese settlement, low-rise concrete, ugly, cattle and people wandering vaguely in the midday heat. We parked on a street corner and sat in the jeep as Tsedup bought some water from a stall on the other side of the road. Predictably, a crowd began to form around the vehicle, pressing their noses up to the glass and pointing. The prospect of opening the windows and relieving ourselves of heat-stroke was not an option. We endured, until Tsedup returned with the water and we drove off, leaving the bemused voyeurs in a cloud of black exhaust fumes. We had not gone fifty yards down the street, when a Chinese police officer stepped out into our path and ordered our driver into the police compound. News had travelled fast.
We drove through the gate into the gravel yard and parked in the shade of a tree. At a table in the sunlit courtyard sat a group of about eight uniformed policemen, playing cards and eating noodles. They had their feet on the table and their jackets hung from the back of their chairs, exposing the holstered pistols slung from their hips. Their Ray-Bans glinted fake golden as they drew languidly on their cigarettes. They didn't look up and I found their nonchalance the most threatening thing about them. We sat in the jeep, awaiting our fate, as a fat officer, obviously the superior of the pack, finished his last mouthful and rose wearily. His deputy, who stood at his side with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, motioned to our driver to get out of the jeep. He gingerly stepped down to join them.
We watched anxiously as they spoke. It was worse not knowing what they were saying. Our driver was Tibetan, and whatever it was they wanted, he was not in a position to negotiate. He came back to the jeep and, in a trembling voice, summoned Tsedup. My mouth went dry as I tried to block out my parents' hysteria and concentrate on the figure of my husband in front of the policeman. They exchanged a few words, then Tsedup came back and asked us for our passports, including his own. The documents were passed lazily around the group, who scrutinised them upside down, methodically turning the pages. One of the officers came up to the jeep and peered at us dispassionately for a few moments. Then there appeared to be a small commotion; they were all pointing at something and getting excited. Tsedup seemed to be making some progress. Suddenly they handed him back our passports and appeared to be waving us on. We couldn't believe our luck, but sat quietly as our driver, visibly shaking, chain-smoked his way out of town.
When we were far enough away to feel safe, Tsedup revealed the details of his experience to us. He had got out of the jeep and the fat sergeant had asked him, 'Where are you from?' He'd told him Machu. The policemen had then deduced that he was a local and the deputy had asked him for his identity card, which all nationals are obliged to carry. He'd told them he didn't have one. The fat man had groaned while his deputy had exclaimed incredulously, 'You haven't got one?' They had been mentally limbering up. It might mean prison, a fine, anything.
'What are they doing here?' the fat man had demanded, pointing out the westerners, huddled in the back of the jeep.
'They are my family,' Tsedup had said. There is my wife in the middle and her mother and father.'
They had had no idea what he was talking about.
'Go and get those people's passports,' the fat one had bellowed.
Tsedup had brought them back the passports and the sergeant had examined them slowly, one after the other. One of the young policemen with his feet on the table had suddenly grabbed one of the passports out of the sergeant's thick hands to have a look for himself. He had nearly fallen off his chair when he saw the picture inside. Immediately he had passed the document to his superior. 'Look! Look!' he had cried out in shock. The fat officer had not deigned to look at Tsedup until that point.
Suddenly he had turned to him. 'Where did you get this?' he had demanded.
' London,' Tsedup had replied.
'What? In England? London?' he'd exclaimed.
'Yes,' Tsedup had said. ‘I am a British citizen.'
The shift in mood was almost tangible: the policeman had slipped from barking orders to an ingratiating tone. 'Well, you be very careful,' he had said. 'We don't want to make any trouble. We will get the blame if any harm comes to you, so please look after yourselves. Normally when we catch foreigners driving in a private vehicle we impose a massive fine, but I'll let you off.' Then he had offered, 'You can extend your visas in Labrang if you need to.'
Labrang, or Xiahe as it has been renamed by the Chinese, stands at about 8,400feet (2,820metres) above sea level and is near the Hexi Corridor, part of the old Silk Road, which was once the main thoroughfare for military, economic and cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe. It is home to one of the six major lamaseries of the Gelugpa, or Yellow Hat, sect of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Tsong Khapa around ad1400.Labrang literally means 'Palace of the Lamas'. For Tibetans, it carries a unique religious and cultural heritage. It was established in 1709,according to the guidebook, and at one time housed up to four thousand monks. Now there are about 1,300.The lamasery, or The Grand Golden House' as the Tibetans call it, was cradled between the mountains, the golden rooftops of its temples winking in the sun. Each building was terracotta red, the colour of warm earth, and had white and black detailing under the gilded roofs and around the windows. Each window was of traditional Tibetan style, with the bottom slightly wider than the top of the frame, like a blunt triangle.
On the main street of the town, fuchsia-robed monks jostled with nomad pilgrims and western tourists. In the profusion of trinket stalls and shops that lined the road to the monastery, Chinese traders sold Tibetan carpets, prayer beads, cymbals, jewellery and thankas - religious paintings. In customary style the Chinese modern architecture of the town was concrete and unimaginative. What had once been temples was now a mass of breeze-block hotels and glass-fronted shops.
We arrived late in the afternoon. The hotel that my mother had chosen was the former Summer Palace of the lama Jamyang Jhapa, the reincarnation of the founder of Labrang Monastery. It sat among the flutter of birch leaves and the gurgle of water in the rocky riverbed. It was quiet and out of reach of the throb of the main town. The receptionist wore the traditional Tibetan dress of the Lhasa region, which was coincidentally what I was wearing that day. It consisted of a full-length, sleeveless, silk pinafore dress tied at the back, with a woven apron of thin, horizontal coloured stripes and a long-sleeved silk blouse underneath. She stood in front of a huge mural of the grassland, which covered the entire reception wall. Yaks and sheep grazed behind her head and a nomad woman fetched water from a blue river to take back to the tent in the background. A real Tibetan hotel. Tsedup smiled and greeted her in Tibetan. But she did not speak Tibetan.
In curt Chinese she stopped him short. 'Speak Chinese!' she commanded. His tone changed to indignation and he switched language. It appeared that the dress and the painting were nothing more than a sham for the next bus of tourists.
We were led to our rooms through a circular garden with flower-beds radiating out from its centre. Around the edge of the circle, positioned just like a tribe, were Tibetan tents, not the black yak-hair variety that we had just come from but white festival marquees with blue swirling patterns on them.
'Wow, real tents! This is great,' exclaimed Tsedup, prepared to forgo his displeasure. I could tell that he was beginning to worry about whether my mother would be happy staying in a tent again. But his fears were allayed when he reached the entrance to ours. As he touched the white surface, his face fell. It was concrete. The inside was fitted with all the usual hotel amenities, TV with thirty channels, plastic shower slippers, hot water twice a day. It was surreal.
Tsedup and I took a rickshaw into town to meet Amnye. A collection of lethargic drivers lazed around the gate of the hotel and we took our pick, haggled, and were ripped off. It was a motorbike with a metal cart attached and it buzzed with great ferocity along the road, past terracotta mud huts and over layers of barley straw. The local farmers required the assistance of passing vehicles to crush their barley husks and release the seed. We crossed the bridge over the river, passing rain-washed prayer flags and hundreds of red and gold prayer wheels lining the wall of a monastery. Nomads and monks were circumambulating the lamasery in the early evening light, performing their kora, turning each wheel as they passed it. They would be reciting the Buddhist mantra Ommani padme hum, as they moved clockwise round the temple, although I couldn't hear them for the rickshaw's whine.
We alighted at the White Conch Hotel in the centre of town where we were due to meet Tsedup's father. Inside, the Amdo receptionist said that he had not been there and that there was no note. We decided to check out the Tibetan hotels and come back later. Perhaps the bus had been delayed. We walked slowly in the gutter as cycle rickshaws clanked past, churning up the dust on the tarmac road. On either side of the street we passed shops crammed with hats, shoes, cauldrons, kettles, steamers and piles of plastic buckets. This was where the nomads came to stock up on provisions. The prices in Labrang were often much lower than in their own nearby towns, so it was not uncommon for a pilgrimage to be combined with an annual shopping spree. They bartered loudly with the Chinese owners, often in their own language, so both parties were left shouting over the other in total incomprehension. Most of the nomad men could speak basic Chinese, and for women, most transactions were covered by a knowledge of numbers and the word for noodle soup. But some of the older generation were none the wiser. Pointing and shouting seemed to work best.
Eating-houses with names such as Snowlands Restaurant and Yak Restaurant cluttered the balconies above the street. Inside, monks stared unblinking at sunburnt backpackers chomping nostalgically on fried omelettes and honey pancakes, while a group of Muslim boys, in white caps, chopped and steamed and stoked in the grimy back kitchens. On the pavement stood a wooden stall hung with yak and sheep carcasses. The fat had yellowed in the heat and had seduced a cloud of flies into frenzied activity. A bored and bearded Muslim man in a blue worker's uniform swatted them lamely with a dead yak's tail. Next to him, under a small striped parasol, sat an equally bored-looking Chinese girl in red nylon trousers and a frilly flowered blouse. She was selling ices from her refrigerated cart and her face was covered in white makeup that stopped at her jawline, revealing a tawny neck. This painted mask was completed by a perfect circle of neon pink rouge on each cheek. She looked like an Aunt Sally. It appeared that, unlike their western counterparts, these Chinese women loved to be white. Instead of topping up on bronzer they bought ivory sticks of foundation to smear it all over their faces.
We reached the side-street just before the monastery. A row of ramshackle hotels stretched the length of the earthy track opposite stalls of Tibetans selling trinkets. Beyond, a green field of barley waved to the wooded hills. At each doorway Tsedup asked if anyone called Karko was staying there. He knew that his father's favourite hotel, the Dolma, was in this street so he left a message there that we were at the hotel by the river. Then we caught another rickshaw up to the monastery. Tsedup was taking me to meet the monks from his tribe who lived there.
We pulled up alongside a huge wall stained with clay water. The red-brown expanse was divided by a narrow passageway leading to a golden-roofed temple. We dismounted the sputtering vehicle and Tsedup had a short dispute with the driver over the fare, then we entered the shadow of the alley. About twenty yards down and set in the right-hand wall was a wooden door. Tsedup pushed it open and a brass bell tinkled above our heads as we stepped over the threshold.
We had entered a courtyard bordered by beautifully constructed wooden rooms on all sides. It was like a sanctuary from the outside world. 'Arro! Tsedup called. Immediately a monk appeared from inside one of the rooms and made his way towards us over the wooden porch. He was dressed from head to toe in the customary fuchsia robes with a patchwork of pink silk on the bodice of his tunic. He beamed from ear to ear when he realised it was Tsedup and they embraced warmly, then Tsedup introduced me and we shook hands and smiled.
Aka Damchu led us into the cool of his room and prepared some strong tea on his iron stove. The room was simple and immaculately clean, symmetrical in shape, with a sleeping platform on either side spread with colourful Tibetan rugs. In the centre of each platform was a low wooden table painted orange with small drawers in each side. On one of the tables lay an old traditional Tibetan book, not bound, but a long, thin sheaf of thick sepia-stained paper with calligraphy on each page. After a page had been read it was lifted with great care from the top, turned over and placed down on the table above the pile. This book had been left open in such a manner and I concluded that we had disturbed his contemplation. He didn't seem to mind, though, but chatted amiably with Tsedup, catching up on the years of news with the usual animated exclamations characteristic of the nomads.
I nodded and smiled as I sipped the black tea. In the calm atmosphere of the cool room I took in the beauty of the space. Along the length of the back wall were shelves of books and a cupboard painted with peacocks and tigers. Above it sat a glass-fronted cabinet containing more books, thib, butter lamps and photographs of Tibetan lamas with kadaks draped around them. Everything inside the room and out had been painstakingly carved and painted by hand. Tsedup told me that the money for the construction of the monks' quarters had been provided entirely by his tribe.
It wasn't long before the other monks began arriving, their meditation punctuated by the guffaws coming from our room. Each one greeted Tsedup with great joy and they hugged. The Tibetans were fond of stories and soon they were all sharing memories of their past together. Aka Damchu used to chase yaks with Tsedup in the grassland when they were boys; Aka Tenzin was Tsedup's mother's cousin's son; all were either related or had shared some particular intimacy with him. They were not all named 'Aka', however: all monks are addressed by this respectful title. It was a great reunion. I had never been in the company of so many monks at once and was humbled, especially as I was a woman in their chambers. But they were not interested in formalities and made us stay and eat tuckpa with them. We sat slurping together as the night came down.
But the search for Amnye had not been forgotten. As we bade them goodnight, after refusing a fourth bowl of tuckpa, they told us to come back the next day with my parents to meet the child lama. We accepted their mysterious invitation, closed the tinkling door to the sanctuary and stepped out into the dark passage.
On the street Tsedup hailed a cycle rickshaw clanking towards us in the dusklight. He told me to get on and go back to the hotel while he wandered around to see if he could locate his father. I went off into the night air, the cyclist panting up the hill. Around me towered the monastery walls and black mountains. As we crossed the bridge and passed alongside the barley-field, I saw small fires glowing near the river. Groups of nomad pilgrims had set up camp and were cooking in their white tents. They bustled and sang, the smoke from the stoves coiling up into the moist, night air, and I thought how much I would have preferred to be staying with them there under the stellar canopy than returning to my concrete tent.
Back inside I checked on my parents, who were lying on their crisp-white-sheeted beds. The world did not seem such an alien place for them now that they had recovered a few of the trappings of civilisation. They were anxious to hear about the whereabouts of Amnye, however, and were concerned when I had nothing to report.
'Perhaps the bus was delayed,' I said. 'He'll probably come back with Tsedup soon and all will be well.'
'Let's hope so,' said my father. Then he turned to other matters. It was a rare moment for my parents to have the chance to speak to me alone. They seized it. 'Will you be all right staying here for six months, Kate?' my father began tentatively. 'If things get too much for you, you will come home, won't you? You know, you could just stay for a couple of months until your visas run out then come back.'
I had always felt the burden of my parents' anxiety. I was proud of them for coming with us. They had done it for us, as much as to satisfy their intense curiosity. Despite my mother's various neuroses (lavatory phobia, dog phobia, insomnia phobia), and my father's seeming lack of command (he wasn't used to other people taking charge), they had made a real bond with the tribe and family that would last a lifetime. They would never forget this trip. Also they had shown me the greatest part of themselves. It had been hard for them enduring the discomfort of life in the tents, such as not washing, being debilitated by mountain sickness and eating offal, but they had conquered their fears. Yet that didn't stop them worrying about their daughter.
'Dad, I'll be fine.' I sighed. 'It'll be great, don't worry.'
We were young and carefree. What did they know? We had been desperate to be here for years and were not about to cut short our stay. However, I suppressed the desire to describe at length the horror that was provoked in me by the prospect of a thousand-mile journey to Hong Kong to renew our visas. We were just hoping that the local authorities would be able to do it when the time came. We had flexible tickets on the international flight back to London from Beijing precisely because we could never be sure how it would turn out. But I hoped it would all come right in the end. 'It'll be fine,' I repeated, distractedly chewing my nail.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. I opened it, expecting to see Tsedup and his father and indeed it was Tsedup, but with him were two men in leather trench coats. They looked like secret agents, but not so secret: the enormous sunglasses of the moustached one were a bit of a giveaway at this time of night.
'I can't find my father,' said Tsedup. 'I've left messages all over town but he is not here.'
'Maybe the meeting went on longer and he stayed in Gannan,' Dad offered, trying not to stare at the strangers, but clearly flustered.
'Oh, these are my friends Tsorsungchab and Sortsay,' Tsedup said. At the mention of their names they broke into smiles, peering into the room over Tsedup's shoulder. 'I ran into them in town. They are from Machu.' The word Machu also triggered a nod and a wider grin from them both. Relieved, we greeted them warmly repeating 'Arro' several times, with more enthusiastic nodding.
'We're going to have a drink in our room next door,' said Tsedup. 'I'll say goodnight now.'
'Tsedup, don'tworry aboutyour father. We'll find out what has happened to him tomorrow,' my father said.
I said goodnight and left them to sleep.
Next door the men were cracking open the beers. The reason for their appearance was not that they were members of some underground operation but that they were townsfolk. The leather trench coats signalled their position in the community. Sortsay, a small, rotund, merry-faced fellow with cropped black hair and acne on his cheeks, was mayor of Tsedup's tribe. Tsorsungchab, taller, thinner and permanently wearing shades, due to a driving accident that had left his eye damaged, worked for the education department. Anyway, it was cool to wear big shades. They had come to Labrang because both of their wives were sick and were attending the outpatients' service at the hospital. Machu did not have adequate medical care at its small hospital. They were pleased to be reunited with Tsedup and took the opportunity to laugh and drink heartily with him. As the evening progressed they teased me, 'Shermo, drink your beer!' It was a bit of a novelty, a woman who drank beer.
Just then there was a knock at the door. Sortsay, who was nearest, opened it. The Chinese girl from Reception stared sourly into the room. She frowned as she said something to Tsedup, then stood obstinately by the door, waiting for his response. He turned to me with a look of disbelief on his face.
'She just asked me what I am doing here,' he said, perplexed.
I rounded on her. 'He is my husband!' I exclaimed, exasperated. It was a futile attempt to defend him since she couldn't speak English.
'I am a paying guest,' he added in Chinese, then translated my outcry. She didn't appear to have grasped the concept of interracial marriage, and the furrows in her brow deepened. She clearly presumed that he was a local, planning a free night in their luxury hotel with his friends. Tsedup told her to go away and check with the manager if she didn't believe him.
Perhaps I was wrong to expect anything else, but the frustration of seeing Tsedup submitted to this humiliation was almost unbearable. We were shocked that he had to suffer the indignities of racism in the place that he knew as home. I guessed he had forgotten: he had been away a long time. I was beginning to realise why he had left.
Right on cue there was another rap at the door. This time it was the manager. He was Tibetan and his bloodshot eyes and ruddy cheeks betrayed a fondness for the beer that he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye on our table. Once again, Tsedup was asked what he was doing there.
'I have paid for this room for me and my wife to stay in,' Tsedup replied, struggling to control his temper. Then the manager pointed to Sortsay and Tsorsungchab and asked why they were in the room. They leapt to their own defence and explained that they hadn't seen Tsedup for nine years. They were having a drink as guests and would be off to their own hotels soon. Disgruntled, the man walked away from the incomprehensible situation and returned to his bottle, as Tsedup called after him, 'Go and check your records.'
After our friends had left, Tsedup and I lay in the dark of the concrete tent and pondered the experience. I knew his pride was hurt and there was little I could do to console him. But mostly he was worried about his father's whereabouts.
The next morning when we arrived at the monastery, Aka Damchu was sitting in the sun on the wooden seat outside his room. He was spinning a prayer wheel, a small barrel of intricately moulded metal that rotated on a wooden stick. A marble-sized ball was attached by a thin chain to the barrel and swung round keeping the momentum, as he flicked his wrist in a constant rhythm. He was introduced to Dad by Tsedup and greeted him heartily. My mother had stayed behind to sketch and rest; she would join us for a tour of the monastery later, and although I understood that she had her limits, I was forced to disguise my disappointment and embarrassment. How often would she be offered the chance to have a private audience with a child lama? He was the sixth reincarnation of Ja Metoch Kamto, the tutor of Jamyang Jhapa, the founder of Labrang Monastery. The social order of the lamasery followed a strict hierarchy. Jamyang Jhapa, whose full name was Jetsun Losang Jigme Tubten Chogyi Nyima Palzang Po, was the head lama and beneath him were four sub-lamas who occupied 'golden thrones'; beneath these were seven more and so on. The boy, Jarsung, whom we were about to meet, was one of the four who occupied a golden throne; he was therefore of considerable rank.
We walked solemnly behind Aka Damchu through the wooden archway into the next courtyard holding our prayer scarves in both hands. As we passed through the gate, my father and I watched Tsedup for tips on decorum. Then we glimpsed the boy sitting waiting to receive us on his throne. He couldn't have been more than thirteen years old, but his eyes held the seriousness of a much older man. He wore wine-red robes and a length of fuchsia fabric across one shoulder. In his left hand he methodically counted the beads of his tranger between thumb and forefinger as he surveyed his foreign guests with curiosity. Following Tsedup's lead, we kept our heads lower than his out of respect. We approached him in our small procession, holding out our kadaks. He leant forward, took them from our outstretched hands and placed each one around our necks. This was all performed in total silence. He seemed so isolated, surrounded by monks much older than himself, and I wanted to ask him so many things. Had he forgotten how to be a boy? What was it like to be discovered as a reincarnate, to live your life in the image of someone else? Had he been a monk before they found him or was he living with his family? Did he realise his destiny before that time? Was he happy? But I never had the chance to display my ignorance.
We followed Aka Damchu to the other side of the courtyard, still bent in supplication, taking care not to turn our backs on the lama. Our friend led us into a shrine dedicated to Jarsung. As far as the eye could see there were books, all written by the six Jarsungs of the past, lining the walls. Butter lamps glowed fragrantly in front of an altar containing a row of pictures of the Jarsungs. Tsedup prostrated himself in front of them as I inspected their faces. The first four pictures were drawn in ink and showed old men, one in the amazing cockatoo-shaped yellow hat of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism. The last two pictures were photographs, and one was of a tiny boy. He looked out of place next to these grand old faces. Tsedup pointed at the child. 'He has written all of these books,' he said. It seemed unlikely to me that a thirteen-year-old boy had achieved such a feat. But then I stopped. Tsedup's comment had revealed to me the true nature of the Tibetans' belief in reincarnation. As far as Tsedup was concerned, Jarsung had been the same Jarsung for hundreds of years; it was only his physical appearance that had changed throughout his various lives. He went on to explain that Jarsung had always been gifted throughout his reincarnations and, true to character, the boy we had met today was famed for being a conscientious and exceptional student.
I was moved by this strange encounter. It was a reminder of the atmosphere of mystery that surrounds Tibet: the unknown, magical and isolated Tibet. Such beliefs have a fascination for us in our logical and largely non-spiritual techno-culture, and the practice of determining the rightful successor to a lama upon his death was mystifying to me. Buddhism teaches that the energy derived from the physical and mental activities of a life will embrace a new life when dissolved by death, and has been fundamental to the Tibetan belief system for centuries. A lama's disciple will often search for years to find his reincarnated spirit, and his journey may take him many thousands of miles. When a likely candidate is located he is set a series of tests. These usually consist of the disciple placing objects that belonged to the late lama in front of the candidate, hidden among ordinary things that did not belong to him. The reincarnate will always select the lama's possessions with uncanny immediacy and a peculiar sense of familiarity. He is then recognised and ordained. It is a great honour for his family.
We took tea with Aka Damchu, who presented us with a framed picture of Lama Jarsung sitting on his golden throne. Then Tsedup, who was increasingly anxious about his father, signalled that we should leave. Dad thanked Aka Damchu for his kindness and we left for the town, but not before we had been offered a personal guided tour of Labrang Monastery that afternoon.
My father and I waited in a cafe while Tsedup played detective. It was a dry, hot day and the sun beat down on the dusty tarmac. He returned some time later with no news, but with a leg of mutton poking out from inside his jacket. Despite his worries for his father, he had had time to visit his uncle. That explained the mutton.
We walked into the main enclave of Labrang Monastery, past the tourists and buses and up an earthy alleyway beside one of the main temple buildings. Tsedup led us up some stone steps to a doorway. At the top, inside the cool shade of a room penetrated by shafts of sunlight, we could see a row of monks prostrating. They began in a standing position then lay full length on the wooden floor, polished smooth by hundreds of years of supplication. Tsedup pointed out his seventy-year-old uncle who, he told us, prostrated here five hundred times a day. He certainly looked fit. Tsedup gestured to him from the door and caught his eye. The old monk squinted at us then shuffled over. When he got to the door and saw Tsedup, he cried out in recognition, showing a row of broken teeth. We followed him to his small wooden house, which smelt musty inside from the soot on the ceiling. We drank tea, and Tsedup and his uncle exchanged news. My father asked if he could take a picture of him and he agreed. He seemed fascinated by the camera, which my father gave him to study, along with his mobile phone. He held them gently, feeling the smoothness of the casings. Through Tsedup, he told us he had never seen a telephone before. My father began to tell him about satellites, at which point he handed it back quickly, saying, 'Be careful with that.'
As we left, Tsedup placed the leg of mutton by his uncle's stove – he had kept it hidden in the monastery for fear of causing offence. It was disrespectful to parade part of a freshly killed animal before the eyes of the compassionate monks to whom we were all sentient beings, even the sheep. Then he stepped outside and told his uncle what he had done. A look of surprise came over the old man's face. 'Meat!' he exclaimed. 'I can't eat that.'
'Oh, yes, you can. It will do you good,' said Tsedup. 'You know you haven't really given it up, so why protest?'
The old man's eyes twinkled and he smiled. 'Thank you,' he said quietly.
That afternoon we met my mother, who told us she had chastised the manager for his treatment of Tsedup the night before. 'Do you understand? He is my son-in-law,' she had protested, pronouncing the words with emphasis and volume. As a child I remembered cringing many a time in the supermarket queue on one of our annual trips to France as she spoke louder and slower in English to a stunned shop assistant, who sat waiting impassively for her to go away. Yet this time she had been really angry: she was mighty when defending her brood. But her outburst had been met with silence. An apology was out of the question.
Still, a tour around the monastery would cheer her up. As the other tourists trailed around in groups we were given the undivided attention of Aka Tenzin and Aka Damchu, and were able to view the rooms quietly. Labrang Monastery was beautiful. The main temple building was vast, dark and cool inside. From the lofty ceiling hundreds of thankas hung like the dense foliage of a forest canopy, into which red and gold columns soared like tree-trunks. Yellow cushions were arranged in rows between the columns for the monks to sit on during prayer. Along the back wall of the room was a series of altars, with displays of unbelievable riches: a golden statue of the Buddha adorned with coral, turquoise, amber and silken kadaks; golden butter lamps, silk flowers, and hundreds of Tibetan books stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling, wrapped in yellow cloth with a small blue, red and gold silk marker hanging from each. Order and precision prevailed, suggesting the care and attention lavished on the monastery. The whole place was a manifestation of the nomads' enduring faith and a clear indication of their wealth, for it had been funded entirely by the donations of nomads from the four corners of Amdo. It felt ancient and precious. Dust turned in the rays of sunlight that pierced the gloom. The familiar, musty scent of Uncle's room was also prevalent here, mixed with the thick, rancid smell of butter burning in the lamps. In the next room monks were chanting their prayers, and the rhythmic resonance of their deep voices boomed through to us in the dank air.
Outside, in the blinding sunlight, we passed pilgrims prostrating at one of the temple doors in a courtyard. An offering site, made of clay and painted white, scented the air with fragrant juniper, which burned and crackled at its heart. The Tibetans love that smell and juniper is often bought and burned as an offering. According to pre-Buddhist belief, juniper is the symbol of life, a representation of the goddess of fertility.
At another temple we were shown intricate murals of the deities, painted in the style of the thankas. I was not used to such unabashed use of colour: I thought of our churches, which often verge on the clinical in some modern dioceses, and wondered what had happened to real craftsmanship in our society. It seemed that only the absolute devotion of a population could produce such works of beauty. Here, the monks worked for the love of the place, and practised their art as they had for centuries.
Finally we visited the museum in the grounds, which housed examples of Tibetan scripts, and other fascinating paraphernalia including a fossilised dinosaur egg. The Tibetans believed it to be the egg of a bird often depicted in religious paintings, holding a snake in its beak. In the centre of the room was a mandala, Wheel of Life, an elaborate, symmetrical picture made from coloured sand. The grains were painstakingly laid on the surface using a metal instrument in the shape of a thin cone with a tiny hole in the end. A monk, who had received special training in the art, would rub a stick along the serrated side of the instrument causing it to vibrate and the grains to fall from the hole. He could control the exact number of grains that would go to make up the picture with incredible precision. The 'painting' was not flat; often there were grooves dividing the patterns, delicate peaks and troughs or tiny paths of triangle-shaped relief. The mandala we saw had been preserved in a glass case for viewing, but usually they are made at the start of a religious festival then thrown to the elements on the last day, as a symbol of the impermanence of life. I thought of the work of street painters in the West, whose masterpieces are washed away by the rain. Generally, apart from the most modern conceptual art, the material value of a painting in our consumer society is paramount. The older it is, the more value it acquires; it is unthinkable to destroy it. Seeing the mandala reminded me of how we sometimes attach the wrong kind of significance to objects in the West. Sometimes we just can't admit life's impermanence.
After our splendid tour we bade farewell to Aka Damchu, and Aka Tenzin accompanied us into town. He proved a useful accomplice. Tsedup told us to buy nothing and just look around, while he made more enquiries about his father. The monk and he made off down the road while my parents and I sauntered around the shops and stalls of the hot street. Scrawny Muslim boys called to us from their trinket havens, beckoning and thrusting pipes, knives and necklaces under our noses. My mother picked out a pair of embroidered silk tapestries of birds that had caught her eye. Then, further down the parade, she chose a thanka, but we did not buy, just as Tsedup had instructed. Instead we waited for him in a cafe under the shade of a canopy, while the flies buzzed around us and a woman with a twisted body begged for change. She wore the old blue Mao uniform and a black scarf tied around her head. I paid her and watched her limp away on her crutches, muttering plaintively. Then Tsedup appeared, and I gathered from his expression that he had still not found Amnye. What if there had been a crash? Tsedup had only just got home after nine years. What a dreadful tragedy it would be if he had lost his father the week after they had been reunited. Itjust didn't bear thinking about. He had phoned a friend in Machu town, but apparently Amnye had not returned. He must be in Gannan, but Tsedup didn't have the number of the meeting-place. He said that Sortsay and Tsorsungchab might know it. They were also helping to sort out my parents' car to Lhanzou so Tsedup would find them later.
He asked my mother what she had found to buy. We described the items, where they were, and told him what prices we had been offered. He laughed drily. 'Wait here. We'll go and buy them for you,' he said.
The best person to shop with in Labrang is a monk. Monks know the prices and they never get ripped off. In fact, it is better that you are not there at all: send a monk.
When they returned they had bought everything my mother had asked for, at about a fifth of the tourist price. We thanked Aka Tenzin for his help, and he grinned, happy to have seen justice done. Then we drank some tea together and I accompanied my parents back to the hotel. Tsedup stayed to look for the men in leather coats.
Later that evening the three friends arrived at the hotel, all smiling. Tsedup had spoken to his father. Apparently the bus had broken down in the middle of nowhere and the passengers had waited all day for help. This had made him late for his meeting. He would not be able to come to Labrang. He had seemed unfazed by the experience, as if things like this happened all the time. What had his son been worried about? Tsedup had reprimanded him for not contacting him when he had got to Gannan, but had had to conclude that he was behaving like an Englishman. It would be a slow process to get the West out of his system. Time means little to a nomad. As long as Amnye had his pouch of tsampa and cheese with him, he could wait patiently for days for any delay to resolve itself.
We all went to the bar. It was dark and sober inside, with leather seating and a row of fancy drinks in optics with tantalisingly exotic names. We opted for beer. Sortsay and Tsorsungchab had come to inform my parents that they had arranged the car and driver, which would leave the next day; it had been 'loaned' by the town mayor. My parents seemed very pleased, so we 'forgot' to give them the exact details. One thing was for sure: the mayor's chauffeur would be hotfooting it back to Labrang tomorrow afternoon before the boss found out or there would be a high price to pay for a little overtime on the side. The two plotters toasted my mother and father with great gusto and downed many drinks in their honour, as we sat laughing at each other across the lacquered table.
The next morning I woke and got up. I have never liked leaving my parents, although I have done it many times. There was still some invisible sinew that held me to them. It was true that things would be easier when we didn't have to worry about their welfare, and I wouldn't have to witness them fighting over the video camera any more, and part of me was looking forward to a break, although I knew I would miss them. However, as the car rolled up to the hotel gate and we loaded their bags, I had to put on a brave face. My father hugged Tsedup – he had not done that before, being an emotional man who rarely betrays his emotions. A very English man. Then he hugged me and I felt the warmth of his plump, safe embrace. My mother was trying not to cry. She clung to me and I held her, and tried to suppress the feeling welling up inside me. If she didn't cry then I could control it.
Then I just stood and watched the arms waving from each window, right over the bridge, through the barley-field, down past the mud huts, out of sight.