Our Tibetan guide sits sullenly in the passenger seat, his arms folded and his face set in a look of disgust as we bump over a rutted road into Lhasa, his hometown. The reason for his foul mood: we are following a People's Liberation Army truck full of soldiers towing a large water cannon. It is one of many reminders in this ancient city high on the Himalayan plateau that Tibet belongs to China.
As soon as we pass the truck, the natural grandeur of the place sweeps in. At an elevation of about 3,600 metres, Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world, and yet it lies in a deep bowl, surrounded by mountain ranges that rise up to 5,500 metres above sea level. It's a city at times almost blindingly white against the blue mountain sky.
The Trichang Labrang Hotel is said to have once been the residence of Trijang Rimpoche, the junior tutor of the 14th and current Dalai Lama. Staying in a room at the hotel is like living in a Thangka painting: a yellow ceiling with blue cross beams, red wooden posts with intricate flower carvings painted green, blue, yellow, red, purple, orange and violet. And on the floor, blue Tibetan rugs with red and white flowers. Dinner is almost as lavish. Yak dumplings, deep-fried flat bread stuffed with lamb, barley butter soup, a tomato and yak-meat stew, stir-fried yak meat with pepper, potato with red Sichuan chilli pepper, garlic butter nan and Lhasa beer. And at the end, coffee, with rich foamy yak milk.
The hotel sits in a narrow lane in the old section of Lhasa, next to the Barkhor bazaar. Throughout the day, hundreds of pilgrims spinning prayer wheels fill the alleys as they make their devotional walk around the Jokhang Temple, which, rather than the iconic Potala Palace, is regarded as the holiest place in Tibet.
Stepping inside the seventh-century temple is like walking through a curtain into a medieval world. The only light is from lamps - large brass basins with burning wicks stuck in rich, half-melted yak butter. Amid the constant murmur of prayer, the thick air is like a stream with overpowering eddies of incense, smoke from burning green cypress branches, yak-butter essence and sweat.
The ceiling is low and the beams and posts are made of ancient wood, made dark by smoke. Hundreds of worshippers, Tibetan and Han Chinese, packed close and holding canisters of oil for offerings, form a long line that wends through the labyrinthine building along a ritual passageway, called the Nangkhor. Calm, patient faces glow in the reflection of hand-held candles.