Much worse - the bump snapped our axle. It's very serious: we're stranded, just like that, less than twenty-four hours out. You have to expect minor disasters in a place like Tibet. It's a disappointment. The driver walks away, in the direction of the Nomad yurts.

Nothing to do, so I bring my camera and cross the meadow, a lovely place to camp. A creek flows right through. The Nomads are up. I snap family portraits... The families are smiling. I think they're used to tourists, placed as they are, near the road. They regard me as much of a novelty, something of a dirty old lecherous fake... Or a handsome prince. I don't care which. They're shy, but grin easy. I give the small children some sugar candy.

I walk over to the next tent, a big one. The family comes outside to say hello. Two young sisters pose patiently as I get close-ups. Real cuties. What good luck to break down here. I give the girls five yuan each. The girls hide their smiles, running back inside the yurt...

I follow the truck driver over to yurt # three. The driver, his pal and the big Tibetan jewelry girl. I join them as they confer inside the yurt, speaking to the family elder, a man of more than sixty, and with grey hair. He pulls open a box and wants to give everyone some wool socks. Two young women attend us. They are the eldest daughters, or perhaps one of them is the young wife of the old man's son. Together, they prepare our lunch, a bowl of fresh rice topped with a dollop of fresh yogurt - the best I've ever tasted. I sit quietly as the trucker and old man speak Tibetan. Only a few words of Chinese creep in. Sometimes the young people cast amazed, even friendly glances my way. Soon lunch is over and I'm polite, and give the old man 5 yuan for the privilege of dining.

Noon passes and sunlight burns through the clouds. The Nepalese crew unpacks some soggy sleeping bags and relaxes on the ground. The cook prepares some tasty gumbo for everyone. The temperature rises to 20 degrees as the sun creeps through the misty clouds. The creek appeals to Tsering who takes a bath. I copy his example. But my timing is off. As I doff my clothes, a big group of Nomads moseys by, walking their yaks. The young ladies titter and stare at my naked body as I attempt to dip in the icy stream. It's chill, but I wash my hair twice; it feels so good getting clean that I don't mind the cold. In a few more hours, the Nepali cook offers us a second luncheon of vegetable stew. We couldn't wish for a better situation - stranded so near to fresh water, with a truck full of food.

All day, only two trucks pass the way we came. Maybe they can alert someone in Darchen about us. The driver works all afternoon to take apart the broken axle. I put up my tent an hour before dusk.

Next morning brings nobody to help us! We don't have a spare axle to replace the broken one. The driver is discouraged and doesn't seem too enthusiastic about his repairs. He can never earn enough money to care, I suppose. Please note that Western tourists love to gripe about "how lazy" people seem in poor Asia... But how many of us actually bother to connect facts with figures? A running shoe company pays 400 million dollars to outfit one team of footballers; but the same bastardly company pays their factory slaves next to nothing to assemble the goods! Nobody in Britain is likely to know that. A Nepali guide earns 300 yuan, about 36 U.S. dollars, for one month's work. They do their jobs well, too.

Late in the afternoon another tour group comes from Kailash. Miraculously, they get a spare axle. Dinner comes and the cook works magic again. The Indians who left us behind won't be back because their land-cruisers do not have sufficient gas: we have all their fuel, in big drums. The cruisers have only enough fuel to reach Saga town where they will have to wait for us to catch up. Several attempts are made to dislodge the broken axle, but hammering the shaft is futile.

We go to bed early. Miguel sleeps outside on the grass. The morning is cool and overcast. Everyone gets up and takes a turn on the jammed axle. Nothing works. So, we wait. We lounge on the grass and eat three more meals. No trucks all day! Such a deserted place.

I should portray each person in our troupe, but I don't know them very well. Our leader, Haaren, has left us behind; of course, she's accompanied the tourists in the cruisers. I've spoken to Miguel and Tsering. The others are silent mysteries. The young Tibetan woman shows her personality although I can't understand a word she says; eating lunch, she takes up as much extra space as she can. Well, she's big and loves to spread out easy. Tsering explains that she comes from Lhasa and travels round Tibet selling jewelry at popular spots like Darchen. She's a real entrepreneur. She shows photos of herself taken with her sister: the photo shows a backdrop of painted-on countryside, much like old country photos of your long-dead great grandad. I like that dated quality. She's playful and doesn't get too angry as we call her a pig for taking up so much space. She just slaps our thighs and claims the uncut gemstones in her hair are worth thousands and thousands of quai. Tsering seems to believe her. She's like a girl. Maybe afraid of losing her youth. Maybe she was married, but isn't anymore. She looks more than alone - she looks abandoned. Ah, but that's my imagination. She's just being free. I'm trying for a really hungry woman, that's all.

The old ways of Tibet show themselves now and again: many women tend towards polygamy: I've seen it three times now, this Tibetan flirting, the open offering of women, by the men, and by the women themselves... Nature makes women give up their bodies. I get the impression Tibetan men are more alone than in other places. Maybe they all understand how a man needs a woman sometimes... So their friends say, "Okay, she's yours tonight..." I wonder, do men know how women need a man sometimes, too?

We're getting worried. Over 24 hours of nothing. The driver has given up the axle for dead. We have supplies enough for two weeks at least. So we can't starve. I picture the Indian tourists, fretting in Saga, without their truck full of food. The servants and hitchers get the feast instead!

At last, a freighter arrives at 5:00 P.M. - going the right way. The driving resemble off-duty Chinese soldiers, and their truck is auspiciously empty. They offer to haul us to Saga for 1000 yuan. We bargain, offering 500 now, 500 when we get there.

You don't know who gets to pay, do you? Me. The Nepalis claim to be penniless, reminding me that boss Haaren - who has all the money - isn't with us. Miguel has 200 yuan left... I have 800. I'll have only 300 left at Saga. Then what? We still need to reach Zhigatse, still some 500 kilometres beyond Saga. I feel sorry for everyone. Don't want to leave them behind. If the Nepalis are pretending not to have money, I won't really know. So what - we go. I pay the 500. Everything from the broken truck goes into the new one.

We're in for a cold, rainy night of bumpy driving. The tarp leaks overhead. I use my tent to keep warm and dry. This is boring. Okay, change the subject: I bet you don't know why Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake..." Did you ever wonder about that one? She's sitting there, waiting, still in her finery, among her flowers and silks and cushions. Then the rebels arrive and she finds herself taken away, alone, and thrust into a dank, cold cell. She suffers the pain of suspense, having a fairly good inkling the people have gone crazy. She can't believe, but she knows, with a biting pang, that this is probably the end. Yet, she doesn't want it to end. She's proud, like any queen. She's an exile, like so many princesses of Europe, married to some stranger, obliged to cart herself off to a foreign land and live among people she doesn't even know. Time and again royal youngsters were forced by parents to represent an alliance with untrustworthy neighbors. Indeed, royal marriage frequently landed privileged innocents among the same folks whom they were taught to dislike since childhood. Royalty has always suffered the strangest of fates... See the woman Marie: mad, spoiled, terrified - waiting in her lonely cell. When someone comes to get her and at last she utters her final words - one wonders - how does she speak them? "...Let them eat cake..." With which tone does she inflect her meaning? Is she outraged? Is she in a daze of distracted disbelief? It appears evident that she is at least sardonic on the surface of it; but it's hard to imagine any woman managing more than a whisper, even if she does know that the peasants of France are as poor, and at least as stupid as herself. She thinks that they want a treat, and they do! Witnessing her death is the just desserts they expect. Her mortality is their only booty, like a little holiday at the end of a weary year! It's the only thrill that they'll ever win back from the thieving rich! So let them - why not after all, they'll always be beastly poor - so, let them have their treat... Is that how she felt and spoke? Probably. We can only speculate about the precise color of her last mood. Did she hate the oppressed people at that moment - as angry vindictiveness overcame her fear? Maybe she uttered her words weakly and meekly, a whisper of self-pity and mortal anguish, accepting her irrevocable destiny: to die in front of the slavering, crude masses, everything ugly, at last, helplessly terrified upon the blood-drenched chopping block...

Let the day break again, darling. I still wait to stretch my bones and stand up straight like a man again. The Chinese drivers rest for only three hours, then we enter some warm, cultivated valleys. The presence of people is much more obvious here, with houses and villages instead of yurts.

Saga arrives. Ten in the morning. We walk into a muddle that almost deteriorates into an angry confrontation. Haaren, the guide, and all the Indian tourists wait for us at the local Tibetan hotel. Immediately, the off-duty Chinese soldier driving the truck demands the balance of payments; but nobody has the money to pay, not even Miss K, or her partner, Tuhbten. All the drivers remain civil. Some painfully slow negotiations ensue. I'm tired of this: being surrounded by people who have unnecessary power over my happiness! I want to get away... I wish my bike wasn't all busted up.

The scene becomes chaotic as the Indian tourists skirmish briefly with Tsering; he's too wild to exercise proper tact... The Indians claim they have no extra cash for this transport emergency; in fact, they're not obliged to pay any extra costs since they signed a contract stating just that. Naturally, they see no reason to pay more now... Somehow, I mediate and help restore everyone's nerves.

I'm on nobody's side. But I wonder how come the tour company is disorganized enough not to have sufficient petty cash to meet emergency expenses. Who can blame the weary tourists after all? Haaren's Indian company subcontracted both the Nepali company and a Lhasa based travel agent for the trucks, land-cruisers and drivers. Tuhbten is one of the driver/guides from Lhasa. In theory, Tuhbten's boss would be responsible for added expenses if trucks break down en route... But apparently Tuhbten doesn't have any cash left over. The Nepalese guides told me that he should have extra money, but that was before we found out Tuhbten had gambled his money away while waiting for us to catch up... With or without Tuhbten, Haaren is going to have a hard time scratching enough to pay them off.

Haaren offers the Tibetan hotelier some American dollars for his rooms, but the man doesn't want any foreign cash! Everywhere around the world people are happy to get cash American dollars! Is this man stupid or afraid of the police? Can't he trust a friend to bring back the right exchange?

Certain patterns of ethos are beginning to emerge, and they appear deeply embedded in the Tibetan character... While some Tibetans are curious and friendly with strangers, not all of them are. In fact, many Tibetans are not at all forthcoming. The real challenge is to discern the cause of this Tibetan shyness. Many of us assume that the Tibetan people are largely frustrated with the imposition of Chinese controls, controls that make them reticent, seemingly because they fear running foul with the authorities. But in a way Tibetans are suspicious of all foreigners, in part perhaps because none of us have really come here to help liberate their country... Basically, most Westerners give money to Chinese travel companies. The less obvious reason for their reticence actually shows you the original character of all Tibetans... While China is responsible for "opening" Tibet to the outside world, it's clear that some Tibetans would prefer no foreigners in their country at all. Tibetan truckers often hesitate to give rides to foreigners. But Chinese truckers often give rides. I suspect that the Tibetans refuse, not so much because the authorities forbid them from transporting us, but because they wish strangers weren't in their country in the first place...

Somehow Tuhbten has promised the Chinese truckers further payments. Miguel and I retrieve all our belongings and we retreat to a quiet lunch in a restaurant. Now, we don't have to hurry. We have 500 yuan between us, enough to reach Zhigatse, if we get a ride.

What is Saga? It's a homely old town, and it reveals the juxtaposition of Chinese governors among Tibet's natives. Except for military bases and public buildings, the town appears traditional, in the style of Tibetan timber, brick and white-washed plaster. Our hotel is very quaint, I think. It has big black plaster window frames and brilliant red, green and yellow paint on the ceiling beams and walls. I wash my clothes while Miguel sleeps. The Tibetan ladies tell me to use less water. I smile at them but keep washing...

We eat and rest. The Indians have gone. No trucks travel east today. Miguel relates stories about a gangster with whom he chummed while travelling Russia. Then he talks about needing money, but how he never spends a penny. Money is the impossible idol of all people; it's the same narrow and aggravating obsession, as much as for those with it already, as for those who still hope to get more. How dull this world really is!

In the morning, after a Chinese breakfast of steamed meat buns, we sit by the road and wait. Some local soldiers blast back and forth in jeeps. Meanwhile, a big truck unloads a whole bunch of soda pop. Two land-cruisers come in, full of aging Tibetans. They are cadres, judging by the Mao picture dangling from the rearview mirror. They don't even notice us.

I read and drink cola. Miguel talks to some kids by the road. It's the only time he seems cheerful. A ten year-old offers me a cigarette and he knows how to light matches better than I. Hungry for some noodles, I walk back to town. Moments later Miguel runs up, gesticulating and shouting! The soda pop truck is willing to take us. One of the drivers is Chinese and his partner, a Tibetan. They don't mind. I sit in back, on the packs - for fresh air and sun!