The natural lawn by my camp is trimmed by grazing ponies... I relax and write. More of the same stuff I've repeated for the past ten years. Can't escape myself - no matter how far I go. I'm not embarrassed to say foolish things... But my mind feels almost ossified, as my elder brother once warned happens to all of us - the inevitable fate of all adults - an imprint of same same thoughts, endlessly recirculating.

Soon, the wood-collecting girls return. What do they do all day? It's summer and so warm. I keep to myself and they stay true to the nature of all children: fearless, they answer only to curiosity, sitting right in front of me on the grass. I find something to get me busy. A flat tire. The wheel comes off and I've won an audience. Then a young man joins us. He carries a really massive bundle of kindling. He sits down and watches me closely and gives the thumbs up when I finally find the thistle spike. I patch the tube, and that's that. The young man gestures for me to follow him to Tsaparang. The kids follow.

Tsaparang village lies beyond a gate before the ravines, above the river. Here's a small field, perhaps a hectare, full of saplings and young trees. The same slender trees grow in Tsamda, too. The trees are almost too fragile for the climate, and it's amazing they survive...

A boy on the path tries to persuade a goat to move, but gives up. I find the village is hardly more than ten houses. A tiny and brand new temple sits beside the road; only a singular huge prayer wheel sits inside. I follow the man with the bundle of sticks. He passes all the village houses till we reach a public school. His apartment is next door to the classrooms. So, he's the local teacher. Lovely sunflowers adorn the soil before his house. I wander into the classroom. Empty. Nothing on the walls - no fancy maps and no pictures of anyone. A few basic Tibetan/Chinese primers lie on the shelf: tiny books with simple fables. Maybe he's stored everything away for the summer.

I join the man in his modest one room flat. He's busy with a gardening chore, and he pays little attention to me as I write my journal: "He has two beds, a settee, a large cabinet painted orange, green and golden yellow, with vases of flowers and lovely birds. Above the cabinet is a collection of personal photos of his family and his pals. He's got a ghetto blaster and four empty bottles filled with artificial flowers. He's got a sturdy cast-iron stove and a few thermoses and pans, and two coffee tables in the middle of the room. Not much else but a fluorescent light and an incandescent bulb. He gave me some peas and some to a little girl who's hanging around, too. She's reading a book, whispering to herself. I'm a little drowsy and it is too hot outside to go back to my tent right away. I must get up early tomorrow and go back 13 kilometres to Toling..."

I return to the tent by mid-afternoon. Yet again, the three girls come to me. These kids are too cute for words. Here I am, lying flat on my back, drowsily reading, and they lie on their tummies, peering inside my tent space. I give them candy between chapters. They smile all the time. Then they start to sing songs. What's that song? It's a chorus, a happy chant, and completely different from the mournful dirge that the men sang this morning... The girl song is full of thankful joy. I hear a name: so their song is about a man. The girls are pleased to be with me. After more treats, they sing again.

The Tibetan phrase book is useful. I ask the girls about their families and they tell me how many brothers and sisters they have. They live here in Tsaparang - it's their home. I try to get them to write their names in my notebook. They scribble and wait for me to do something. Like what? I don't know. They can't stop smiling. Soon the sun sets and they run along, toting bundles of kindling on their backs.

Morning and I ride away without wanting to. Fantasies about building a cabin here run through my head. Then I imagine the impossibly difficult problem of finding supplies. But I could grow a garden and do nothing but write novels with a view of sandstone canyons, placidly isolated, and completely unhurried by crowded cities, free from technocracy, enjoying peaceful solitude.

Is it wrong to want to be alone; is it selfish to wish for some way to cultivate a garden and develop my innate talent? Perhaps the West actually condemns individual effort even more than the East. If you want to achieve insight into the true nature of the universe, the Lamas - Tibet's Buddhist monk-teachers, have prescribed removal from the community into a life of absolute solitude and tantric meditation, and not only for a few days, but for months and years.

The Western world forces us to become social beings because that's how we prosper. Active participation equals winning, that's all. But all I want is to set-up far away from all that and write. So, who would dare support a crackpot like me? I'm too far from home: how could I know what to write about? That's what the clever bullies will say. Hmm. But for me, nations and creeds are only small and unimportant fragments compared to the whole of knowledge.

The sand beneath my wheels is slow. The dawning day feels good, because nobody watches me. I'm not expected anywhere next week, either. I want to disappear from the memory of my family and friends. My inner strife is too petty and my squabble with the material world, barbaric. I wasn't always such a mean man. I began by trying to evade misunderstanding. To be loved is enough. Yes, it is. But being loved isn't the same thing as making art. Neither is selling cheap pop. Guge is distant now...

The road hobbles up and I ride the plateau. I see a boy of twenty pass me, hiking in from the main road, carrying two heavy bags, smoking a cigarette. He looks at me intently: he's a close friend to an enemy in my heart; he's proud as daggers, thrown away for nothing. We pass by the silence between us. I ride back and around Tsamda - there's only one way out... Back over the bridge and up the ravines, retracing the way I came. At 5:00 P.M. I camp on lovely long-haired lawn beside the bird rookery. The wind dies as I put up the tent.

So many mornings alone... I've grown used to the hard work, sure. But it's still tough. My tire springs a slow leak. I patch it twice and it leaks still... I fix it a third time. This time the tube holds and I leave thistle-land forever. I take the right fork and head northwest, to Purang county and Mount Kailash.

How have you managed to read this far? It's so utterly boring - I don't expect you to make Lhasa. My original plan was to ride all the way to Lhasa from Xinjiang, nearly 4000 kilometres. My immediate goal, Mount Kailash, is only 200 kilometres. Then proceed to Lhasa over the Mayum La. It's a long way, still almost 1500 kilometres, at least. I'm certain that I can make it, unless something goes wrong. In fact, I'm hoping the bike will fail, so I can take a break!

The road falls suddenly into a deep river valley. After losing at least 300 metres of calories I get off my bike and slog way down to the marsh for a drink of water. The road above has been so empty, and it's giving me the creeps. Fate takes a fresh bite as an unreachable land-cruiser passes by above me. The next ridge lends a look at the Himalayas. Beyond, I spot the magnificent Sutlej.

Twice more I dip into ravines eroded and clenched between fingers of plateau that stretch out from the steep northern peaks nearby. A whole truckload of goat shit has been dumped onto the gravel road. Then I see a girl. She's tending her family's goats. I'm still not sure if this really is the right road. So I get off, call out and walk into the sparse pasture after her. I shout, "Hello, wait!" But she starts running away and won't let me catch up. No chance I can ask her anything. Seldom do cyclists come here, so I must look an odd specimen.

The same thing happens in the next ravine. A prefabricated bridge spans the rippling creek. Three nomad children play upon the bridge: lying on their bellies, they gaze between the slats towards the river. They are one teenage girl and two boys of five. Seeing me, they jump up and run off the bridge towards their yurts, screaming.

I go under the bridge to get some water and eat. A man approaches, walking in front of the kids. The kids watch me shyly as he sits with me, a calm smile on his face. Soon, the older girl inches closer and sits a few metres away. But nobody wants my cookies. I ask about the road. Yes, he says, it will join the way to Mount Kailash.

Few people live here. I go on and pass two lonesome homes - a yurt and a more permanent place made of earth with a stonewall corral. I reach a dome of earth smooth as a skull, and as bald save for a few blades of coarse scruff that even a goat couldn't stomach. Yet below, the plateau unfurls a wave of tender green velvet, all the long way down to the sunny Sutlej valley. Above and beyond the canyons tower the Himalaya. The mountain tops are snowy, they look like enamels ready to bite you off. The dry air is soft yet clear and saturated with sunset...

These titans range from 6500 to 8000 metres and more. Above 6000 metres, nature fails to erode these peaks: they are stark, frozen and will outlast all the mountains on Earth. I gaze south for two hours as I eat and smoke. A few moments of cosmic time, as brief as life truly is: that's all I get of their eternal glory. The Himalaya are taller and much more sharp than any of the mountains in your mind...

As I pack up next morning, a teenage boy walks up. He grins and he's in a playful mood. He helps me roll away my tent. He wants me to give him something. "Give me, give me!" But I don't know what he wants and I don't know what to give him. He asks for it too intently. I hear, "Dalai, Dalai." So he wants a photo of the exiled Lama. I don't have a single one. That's it, I'm one more disappointment for the poor kid.

I leave. Up to now I've been on pretty good terms with nature, having endured only one day of freezing rain last week. I've been lucky. But did you know that snow can happen at anytime in Tibet? No sign of it today; the sun shines its magnificent warmth on me. However, the road plays a cruel trick on me. After making every appearance of topping the last pass yonder, as I crest the ridge, what do I get but yet another long drop into a steep river valley before having to climb all the way up again to that last pass yonder...

As I reach this last green valley, the one thing that hits me is a feeling that the people are missing. There should be at least a few nomads living here! It looks like a great, wide valley. But I cannot spot any tents. They're probably further downstream... Yet, I begin to wonder: is the population of Tibet dwindling? Such a peaceful space ought to permit more folk, I think. A pure culture like this ought to prosper, undisturbed - forever...

I force my bike and body up to the line that divides sun from cloud. To camp near the summit risks a blizzard. Yet, as I crest the pass, the snowy rain hits me. I can only escape by facing it, and ride down the other side. The horizon beyond is utterly dark. Apparently, the mountains ahead, to the north and west, are a siphon for the monsoon.

Today the monsoon is freezing cold, and it lurks beyond this last ridge. Yet, the clouds hold back their wrath, as if waiting till I get up too high and cold. Behind, I feel the icy Himalaya staring at my back. I cannot discern their hidden thoughts: disbelief, indifference. Uninformed judgement: I'm a chimp to that old monkey of a snobby prof... I'm like a terrified horse, rearing my head to catch a view of the way ahead. Ask the corpse of your mother or father if they love you still...

Cold Himalayan rain feels is hard, like a horrible torture. I'm soon soaked. Only my constantly revolving body keeps me from freezing. A place to camp seems impossible in the wet cold! The sleety wind, a hateful spirit, holds me back. I'm almost crying though there's no real danger, only an unpleasant discomfort, and a sinister sensation of some invisibly divine and gleeful malice. I don't care if any god invoked by my meditation can pity me or not! I'm thinking of heat and hot drinks. Only two hours ago, the plateau above the Sutlej was hot and the sun so bright! Now, I think of dying in the cold rain! The sun - the sun has deserted me too soon...