The pavement ended, as it did after towns. Dry as it was here, still there was a light mist hugging the earth. While we woke with no electricity in the hotel, it still felt closer to civilization than the day amid the nomads.

One of those ubiquitous blue Chinese trucks threw up dust ahead so we couldn’t see for several kilometers, as we climbed slowly out of a dry, gray gravel gulch. Peaceful, empty landscape scrolled by for an hour and more, cooking fires rising from settlements and streams glinting in the slant of the early morning sun.

Another unintelligible mantra, carved in giant characters, stretched across a hillside. Gradually, a few at a time, trees popped up around settlements - but nowhere else - until eventually a thick stand of trees lined the riverbanks at an unnamed village. Ten army transport trucks convoyed by. More yaks. A dust devil out in a field.

A series of long valleys stretched to the horizon, then again, and again. Snow patches dotted the stark brown hills and clouds would form, little cumulus puffs, out of mere air. You could just sit and watch them, and with a long horizon and plenty of time, that’s just what we did. A sing-along broke out to the cassettes for a happy couple of hours.

*****

Xigatse is Tibet’s second city, former home of the Panchen Lama with his residence, Tashilumpo Monastery - one of the few monasteries allowed by the Chinese to stand (because of a deal with the devil by the previous Panchen Lama - the incarnation of the Panchen Lama who succeeded him - who is just a boy now - was summarily arrested and smuggled to house arrest in Beijing).

The Tashilumpo Monastery and the best hotel in Tibet outside Lhasa both gave Xigatse a certain allure. So when we pulled up to Friendship Hotel #2 instead of our promised and paid for Xigatse hotel - the one with the toilets - the whole tenuous peace broke down.

I insisted we had to go the Xigatse Hotel. Sir, our “helper,” turned around full to talk to us for the first time on the entire trip, and Noodleboy mouth breathed while Sir exploded.

For the first time, in his anger, he made himself understood. I had done a bad thing when I had come in and dragged them away from their friends at lunch. All Chinese eat lunch! He was just doing his job.

He showed me a list of the amounts of money he’d been given back at the border for our lodging. It included 120 yuan, or $15 for today. The Xigatse Hotel was 480, or $60, and he couldn’t pay for that.

He didn’t know how we did it in our country but in Tibet they did it the Chinese way. He angrily decided: He’d give us the 120, we could stay wherever we liked. No monastery tour for us today and tomorrow we leave for Lhasa at 8:00 sharp!

That was what we wanted, too, so once everybody cooled off they drove us over to the only hotel west of Lhasa with toilet paper. For the first time ever he insisted on unloading my bag instead of me, did so theatrically, admonished “8:00 tomorrow” and they all stormed away.

The pavement ended, as it did after towns. Dry as it was here, still there was a light mist hugging the earth. While we woke with no electricity in the hotel, it still felt closer to civilization than the day amid the nomads.

One of those ubiquitous blue Chinese trucks threw up dust ahead so we couldn’t see for several kilometers, as we climbed slowly out of a dry, gray gravel gulch. Peaceful, empty landscape scrolled by for an hour and more, cooking fires rising from settlements and streams glinting in the slant of the early morning sun.

Another unintelligible mantra, carved in giant characters, stretched across a hillside. Gradually, a few at a time, trees popped up around settlements - but nowhere else - until eventually a thick stand of trees lined the riverbanks at an unnamed village. Ten army transport trucks convoyed by. More yaks. A dust devil out in a field.

A series of long valleys stretched to the horizon, then again, and again. Snow patches dotted the stark brown hills and clouds would form, little cumulus puffs, out of mere air. You could just sit and watch them, and with a long horizon and plenty of time, that’s just what we did. A sing-along broke out to the cassettes for a happy couple of hours.

*****

Xigatse is Tibet’s second city, former home of the Panchen Lama with his residence, Tashilumpo Monastery - one of the few monasteries allowed by the Chinese to stand (because of a deal with the devil by the previous Panchen Lama - the incarnation of the Panchen Lama who succeeded him - who is just a boy now - was summarily arrested and smuggled to house arrest in Beijing).

The Tashilumpo Monastery and the best hotel in Tibet outside Lhasa both gave Xigatse a certain allure. So when we pulled up to Friendship Hotel #2 instead of our promised and paid for Xigatse hotel - the one with the toilets - the whole tenuous peace broke down.

I insisted we had to go the Xigatse Hotel. Sir, our “helper,” turned around full to talk to us for the first time on the entire trip, and Noodleboy mouth breathed while Sir exploded.

For the first time, in his anger, he made himself understood. I had done a bad thing when I had come in and dragged them away from their friends at lunch. All Chinese eat lunch! He was just doing his job.

He showed me a list of the amounts of money he’d been given back at the border for our lodging. It included 120 yuan, or $15 for today. The Xigatse Hotel was 480, or $60, and he couldn’t pay for that.

He didn’t know how we did it in our country but in Tibet they did it the Chinese way. He angrily decided: He’d give us the 120, we could stay wherever we liked. No monastery tour for us today and tomorrow we leave for Lhasa at 8:00 sharp!

That was what we wanted, too, so once everybody cooled off they drove us over to the only hotel west of Lhasa with toilet paper. For the first time ever he insisted on unloading my bag instead of me, did so theatrically, admonished “8:00 tomorrow” and they all stormed away.