Darchen is a messy concoction of worn-out buildings clumped at the misty foot of invisible Mount Kailash. Rain and fog everywhere. I unload and discover a small cafe. I run into a good-humored American girl and her companion, a feisty British chap. I order a hot meal of Tibetan goat noodles.

The Englishman is beginning to age but resembles a jazz singer, with a stylish goatee and rings flashy on his fingers. He's brassy but not too cynical and I like him right off, even if liable to quick judgments and superiority, like so many Brits. He's like a memory for hipsters, and that's fine with me. He's full of quips and recollects his favorite reruns, the kind of guy who enjoys reciting Basil Fawlty's best shows, in an effort to entertain his American girlfriend. We men have to keep the lay happy somehow, don't we? So, like most of us, this Brit doesn't need to be original.

But I don't much want to bother with this American girl; she turns out a fusty sort of half-broad, half-prude - grade A chickabiddy - the one combination in a woman I can't stomach at all. A surprise, since she comes from California, a place alleged to produce lusty free-lovers, not stuffy married types hampered by such wide-ranging prejudices as this high-hat lady cultivates... She's the sort of gal you need to "get to know" before she'll be really nice to you... She's that kind of woman who makes fun of everyone except her current lover, because that's how she feels safe and sound. She does have an athletic body, if not a little too fat. But it's her repulsive, prudish side that gets me down - preaching enough rules to disappoint the toughest hero. Light one little ciggy and she goes off: "Don't smoke, don't drink!" I'm laughing because I can see the poor British clown is working very hard to prop up his gentlemanly act, which is the only way he can keep her in bed! It's comical and depressing to watch a man squash himself, so he can get laid! Okay, so we're in Tibet, and the guy isn't likely to meet anyone else way out here. Oh, I know he thinks the woman an absolute dimwit, and he's just acting pleasant because he needs to entertain her, perhaps to defeat the pain of being alone, too long away from clan and home. So, I like him, even with his frayed edges. He manages to make the American woman laugh, sometimes. They are intimate and happy to have their communion, and quite contentedly resigned to their temporary mismatch.

Nowhere to stay. A Korean and a Japanese lead me to their hotel, but a frosty Austrian - what a snotty knob - has taken the last cheap room. Looking in, I see that he's already put his woman, far too pretty for him, to bed, probably by giving her a stiff rap over the head with something thick and heavy enough to make her forget who she's with... I've forgotten him and already look forward to make an escape from Darchen even as I return to persuade the Brit and his baggage to let me share their small storage room. This room is next door to the police station, a squalor of three small beds let out to paupers like us. Friends of the Tibetan-staffed PSB come and go to fetch their yak butter whenever they feel like it.

As I scamper through the icy rain, Darchen depot reveals itself a busy hub for Asia's most faithful folk. Many universes populate Buddhism, but the cosmogony of Tibetan Buddhism places Mount Kailash at the central axis of our universe, and represents a foundation for reality. If you want to find out more, I suggest you read Waddell's "Tibetan Buddhism." Although dated and considered somewhat blurry and assimilative, the Waddell book still nevertheless offers an interesting and very detailed study. Kailash Mountain may be described as the intersection of Bon, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jain religion. The Bons tell that their founding master arrived to teach at Kailash before Buddhism was established; historians explain that the Bonpo sky goddess, Sipaimen, made her home here. Milarepa, the pioneering Buddhist, did visit Kailash and Buddhists believe that the mountain is home to Cakrasamvara, the Buddhist "wrathful" meditational deity who evokes the tantric mood of great compassion; Cakrasamvara is actually inspired by the Hindu pantheon, and the deity is said to be a transmuted form of Lord Shiva in union with his consort. Indeed, the Hindus have long held that Kailash Mountain is home to Shiva the Destroyer; Jains believe their saint, Rishaba, attained liberation here.

Several Indians are here now, on a pilgrimage to Kailash. They're middle class, even rich, and these Indians travel together with their impoverished countrymen, the long-haired, scantily clad Sadhus, many of whom once were ordinary Indian men from all walks of life. The Sadhus renounce all their worldly possessions, give up their family, and thus release themselves from all social responsibilities to explore a deep and enduring devotion to their faith, wandering India as penniless beggars, dressed in skimpy rags. It's curious to observe that nothing like this kind of behavior is tolerated in America or Europe, now is it? To all Indian Hindus, rich or poor, Kailash Mountain is known as the "Crown of Shiva." Shiva the Destroyer is perhaps the most important divinity in the Hindu hierarchy, with a typically ambivalent role to play... Hinduism always strikes me with its sophistication, as it combines extremely contrasting psychological traits, taking the form of "creative powers," within the self-same deity. Shiva is a perfect example of this imaginative daring. Curiously, the fantastic tenor of India's predominant faith has made the people unwittingly fatalistic, and they endure meekly beneath their cruel beliefs; even so, they can be a most compassionate people when they choose to be...

Back in the room, I finally dry out. The rain outside continues and foggy humidity permeates everything with claustrophobic cold. No light-bulb shines in our room. The Tibetan guy and gals next door in the police office keep busy making the noisiest long distance calls...

I've done with Collins's mystery novel. So, the Brit gives me a new novel to read by a much respected Scottish lout from a very deprived Glasgow neighborhood that his rich south English publishers probably will never condescend to visit. Water leaks from the storage room ceiling, and after one of the saucy American girl's mean double entendres about there being only one drip in the room I simply turn the other cheek, cheerfully stating that I'm a loser no longer, especially after having bought a Chinese jackknife in Kashgar, and how, while I usually lose knives, I did not lose this one; instead, I bent it on the first bottle cap I tried to open: so what else could I do but, "Throw it away!" The Brit has bedded a goofy ball-buster. He knows it, too. She admonishes him after I suggest sharing a beer. Momentarily, he loses his hard-won self-control, spitting under his breath, "It's a bitch!" Ha, ha - some guys will torture themselves to no end, so unnecessarily, just to keep their little dickies hard in a hole!

We go to bed. The storm interrupts everyone's sleep when the poor British chap discovers all his clothes have been soaked through and through... My stuff is stacked high up above the floor and I'm hoping it'll be safe. Morning comes and the unremitting cold makes me want to get out! The rain isn't going to stop and I don't mind missing mighty Mount Kailash. The friendly Korean says he heard of a ride. It's the China Post truck, but they won't take me because I have a bike! Fuck it! I stand there, everything ready, and watch the truck go off without me. Some rich Jap girl points her elephantine camera lens at me for a cheap shot. Then she gets into a jeep with her pet boy of the year and zips away.

I find a Tibetan trucker going east but he refuses me - I don't know why - even after I bring over the Tibetan chief of police to ask him nicely. The Brit and his broad want to do the Kora - a local term denoting a three-day walk round Kailash. I say good luck. The Brit looks at my bike and wonders why I haven't got a proper mountain bike. Again, everything about being here irks me. The whole world has gone sour and stupid with material snobbery: everybody else has a better camera, a better bike or a better idea than you do... Why can't we simply be good to each other and not worry about rating everything? I'm nuts with the crass insecurity people force on each other. Okay already - haven't I got anything good to say? Sure, the Brit is very witty in his own right, and often appears as innocently cut-up by his natural self as I or anybody. I'm tickled, too, by his mock annoyance at having "missed" the news on his short-wave radio. He really is the kind of fellow who always gives you the benefit of any doubt he might have about you. As for the American, she smiles, laughing off our discussions of drug availability across Asia. I feel very amused by these two lovebirds - so mutual about their "need" to protect one other from my stormy emotional sea... When a young Tibetan guy waltzed into our room last the evening, I promptly pushed him back out after realizing he had no reason to come inside but to snoop on us. Now, it's the Brit's turn to be amused, and he has a chance to tell me to cool it.

Darchen is gloomy and frigid. The police chief tells me it's unusually cold. I've had chills enough forevermore! So again, I go out searching for a ride. The Indian pilgrims travel en masse in a big Russian/Chinese bus. I join them, overloaded or not. They're done walking round Kailash and need only stroll about holy Lake Manasovar. Then they can truck back to the Indian border at Purang. The Chinese government gives out special travel permits and visas for Indian pilgrims to cross the border at Purang, a border kept closed to everybody else.

Twelve affluent Indians and twenty-plus Sadhus cram the bus for the journey to Hore, a village beside the great lake along the main road to central Tibet. We go at 9:00 A.M. The people are jubilant. I've never seen Sadhus before: they're quiet and barely speak, not even to each other. Wearing nothing but tattered rusty-colored loincloths, they appear oblivious to the cold. Many of them have very long hair. They are mostly old, only a few are young. Apparently, the Sadhus plan to walk round the icy lake - nearly naked - all night!

The Indian pilgrims near the front of the bus seem more familiar to me. I stand by the door, chatting. They play popular Hindi songs again and again on the stereo and carry on enthusiastic conversations. Their trip to Tibet is a once in a lifetime adventure. Low clouds veil us, and the path ahead is a mushy bog. We catch up with the China Post truck, deeply mired in a muddy rut. We have to stop and help, as do all the trucks.

Next comes a vaudeville act as the truckers attempt to unglue the heavy vehicle. Now is a good time to get acquainted with everyone... One of the middle class Indian fellows is voluble, offering some handfuls of popped lentils. Delicious. He's decided it's important to his spiritual well-being to be kind to everyone. He's sincere and that makes me feel humble and selfish at the same time... Of course, he's far far from his home in Mumbai, but the frenetic imprint of that messy cosmopolis clings to his personality, and explains why he babbles non-stop.

The Japanese and Korean were riding the Post truck and they join us. After months of travel, their faces wear that glassy-eyed and serene look of the willingly lost... It's as if they've realized how immaterial time really is, and they have finally forgotten how the world hurried them so often, before...

The general uprising to free the rooted truck entertains everyone. The ropes are tied to a heavy truck, which then attempts to drag the stuck one out. The ropes break, so they get another line. After an hour the truck is pulled free. During all this, the Mumbai sprite introduces all the other Indians. One fellow works for a daily newspaper. He's writing a travelogue about the pilgrimage. Each one of these people is a faithful Hindu, and so they adhere to a strict vegetarian diet.

Milton wasn't trapped by road freight & action description, was he? Nah, he scolded his kids to their anguished beds and then wrote for hours and hours, carefree as a jungle parrot, fully immersing himself in a scalding bible bath... Perfection in the literary arts is no longer pursued today as it was then: once - art, poetry and knowledge were one whole, good thing. Now we worship all the gods of spontaneity and people lose originality and creativity to their concepts of career. Everything is sliced up into practical purposes and short spans. Oh, we still strive for ingenuity. But to worship art is considered impossible now. The fatal sovereign: she's too demanding! The artist always pays too dearly to believe in her, and somewhat less if he play-acts at the obsession.

Indeed - I once earned a good wage by making fun of "professional" actors and musicians! How backwards the whole world is: we fine artists are put to sleep because nobody needs us. What's wanted now is a perfectly frothy cheesecake: the media "Personality," born to excuse the fantasies of millions of self-centered savants, each dopey one of us desirous to reach some ideal and stupidly impossible life. I'm only to create. Consider myself lucky. But for such audacity, I'm actually chased away - again and again!

Americans won't let you criticize anything about their pop culture. They call that being a downer! Whatever makes the most money is Culture from now on. You have no choice because you don't want to be left behind, do you? Originality can be a great sin. Having a "bad" attitude is a crime. The future fate of "artists" is preposterous: we plan to conduct formal proceedings against anyone of us who doesn't exhibit a "professional" attitude. We will cast out and belittle all those who weren't raised with proper social skills, decent kinship and born-in-the-city connections... Heaven is having the correct social formation! Hell, we're conducting many a trial based on personal social failure already - aren't we? Don't you dare live in a hotel and tote round a sack full of something expensive. But I do believe we should all drop that bullet before you stick it in a child's skull. How now brown cow? Anyone who doesn't solicit the approval of the very few senior and respected artists, and subsequently bow down to the patriarchy of the public grant, any such doomed solitary shall be classed as non-entity for deliberately "dropping out of sight." I am looked down on, for being passively pushed aside and "marginalized" instead of going out, proactively, to sell myself as a "great world teacher!" Social connections are and will continue to be worshipped like a new God, while all expressions of original art or of anger or feelings of ecstasy, of course, will be safely relegated to fantasy, religious and drug modes... I'm not serious, but if Oscar Wilde were alive today, he would be officially ignored, and wouldn't get a single booking for a public speech - not anywhere... Today, it would seem laughable to hear him suggest the quality of art is more important than the ease of its mass production and diffusion to large audiences. People today will condemn such a concept of good taste. The effort behind making an original art work is now "too difficult." The past, present and future of bad taste and mediocrity is, and will continue to be, the propagation of a whole lot of dull commercial genres of fiction, pop music, television and movies. The ubiquitous uniform! New faces! Everything internationally "the-same." Consume me honeybuns! Boy what a bastard I am and don't know nothing. Whatever, keep it safe and big enough to be called popular... And I don't care what you think about me for telling you that "popular art" is all snot for thick-wits and lazy Pharisees, pretending to sophistication, sold on the idea that "good" art must find a suitable market form.

But as for perfection and art!? Have you ever noticed how the finest works of art denote the unity of personal insight with the expression of a greater truth..? The true artist is guilty of nothing but being himself! Herself! I'm not you: I am not trying to present myself as something you will want to consume! But you wonder: is that excuse any better for being a loser? If you're a popular hack writing the same bad horror novel over and over again, then just forgive yourself. You're only your limited self. Genius or not doesn't matter... Why not? Because people are everywhere only themselves: born with dreams... I'm not so intolerant as you think... I only feel doomed to silence, that's the worst of it. This is the meagre misery about being born a poet. In the end, I really don't care at all how you make your living...

...I chat with the lady sitting right behind me on the bouncing bus. She's from the south of India, Karnatak state. Let's call her "Hush." That's not her real name. She was a teacher of English literature at a college. She says that she gave up a plum job quite recently, explaining that she was fed up with the official bureaucracy and all the insidious systemic corruption. She says that it's difficult for women to get ahead in India. The society remains very traditional and men dominate everything.

Our drive is briefly interrupted as we arrive at Barka checkpoint. The Chinese soldiers make a handful of local Tibetans get off the bus - so they can count all the foreigners. Apparently, they have to compare the tour prospectus with the number actually onboard. Someone explains to the police that the richer Indian tourists invited the Sadhus to come along for a ride.

Barka. What a place! Suspicious-looking soldiers all over the checkpoint! The Chinese are control freaks. No wonder the Tibetans are so antsy! Of course, there's no telling what lack of an education can do for your resignation quotient. But don't misunderstand me, while the Tibetans are often an outwardly pacific people, they have a language and mind all their own - neither of which are much understood by the Chinese... Finally, after forty minutes, the soldiers let us go.

On the bus, I talk with Hush a little longer. She tells me about her wish to do something original and creative, and about being a writer of fiction herself: she dreams about starting a course in creative writing. I think she has a great idea, and I volunteer my services, ahead of my own plan, a veritable Flammonde. The Hush shows her passport to me. The cover depicts an image of the Hindu Wheel of Life, and there's a motto coined by Gandhi... But today's India is ruled by selfish, mean little men. There aren't any more Gandhi's, I'm afraid. Only megalomaniacs and their stale H-bombs!

The bus rolls to Lake Manasovar, one of twin lakes, both very massive, emblems for the sun and the moon. At last we unload beside a basic hotel at Hore. For three weeks of ugly cement cells, no food, metal cots and vintage busses, the Chinese tourist agency dings the Indians for a fabulous 500 U.S. dollars each. Wow, God is expensive these days! But they don't care! This really is Kailash, Tibet - the crown and bathhouse of mighty Shiva!

I persuade the elderly Tibetan lady proprietor to give me a room for 20 yuan a day. So you see the irony: while the Indians are five to a room for 500 U.S. each for three weeks, my 20 yuan is only $2.50. Three weeks of my tour equals 42 dollars plus one bus fare of three dollars and maybe 30 more for food. A Tibetan guide works for the Indians. I'm embarrassed now, because he's the same nice kid I pushed out the door last night! But he's forgiving and forgetting, really a very nice boy who speaks some English. He can share my room. That's fine. He comes in after I finish doing my laundry for a nap. He has on a sharp cowboy hat and looks so handsome. He's so calm, silent and collected - quite a contrast to the nervous Chinese and flighty Indians. He even knows how to take a nap while I smoke and read.

It's so pleasant to laze around instead of breaking my balls on a bike all day. The chill weather fuels my appetite for reading. What else can I do but resign myself to success, solitude and the blessing of eternal anonymity?