At last I find the Gongkar Monastery. Night has fallen and I'm hardly able to make out the English sign. The monks of Gongkar will be amenable to my staying overnight, so said the French cyclist in Zhigatse who gave me tips about the Brahmaputra valley. A bright light emits from the ground floor. I'm ushered into the gate-keeper's lodge. One young novice introduces two elderly monks, enjoying some butter tea on their mats. They invite me to eat some dinner and I politely accept a cup of tea. Then a young novice appears with a religious disquisition written on a long roll of brittle paper. He hands it to the eldest of the monks who begins to study it carefully. The younger sits silently at his side, waiting for a response. I see the elder smile to himself as he reads the text. After some time he makes a few comments while the younger silently studies again what is written, as if wondering how to do it all over again. Nearby, an aging manservant reclines on his carpet, dozing away.

This gate-keeper's lodge at Gongkar is an ancient room made of polished timbers. Two hundred years of lamp smoke have blackened the smooth and supple-seeming wood. The monks offer me deep-fried fritters made of rice flour. I munch them and drink tea as 10 P.M. approaches. I try to remain innocuous and can't dream of disturbing their peace. The hour passes slowly by. I don't know where to go and sleep. Finally, the young monk who shows me in reappears and leads me to a spare cottage within a grassy courtyard. It's quiet and peaceful. The guest room to myself, I enjoy writing by candle light.

I wake at dawn. The young monk who greeted me waits outside - wide-awake. His glance pierces and he very much wants to show me around the monastery. His pate is shaved bald. So, I follow him politely with my camera. He takes me into a temple full of icons picturing elderly and boyish lamas wearing yellow robes. Up on the roof, the Gongkar valley stretches golden green beneath the early sun. Far beyond the barley is the ruined Gongkar Dzong, a fort built ages ago by local feudal lords. Nothing much remains of this great fortress, only some collapsed walls gently merged into the steep ridge. On our left, the valley rises southwards into an abundant expanse of ripening crops; a sharp wall of peaks closes up the rising green space. The clear air of Tibet helps you see easily across great distances. Then my host leads me into the main assembly hall. The Gongkar Monastery is a fascinating relic because it is one of few well-preserved examples of the Sakyapa School in Tibet. The Sakyapa constitutes a derivative sect of Tibetan Buddhism arising in the 11th century west of Zhigatse town. As the teachings of Padmasambhava were inspired with newer ideas, the Sakyapa school arose as a syncretic faith combining the original Nyingmapa teachings of the 8th century with 10th century movements. The Sakyapa pantheon includes the popular Tibetan guardian spirit, Hevajra and the imported Indian deity, Cakrasamvara. The development of Buddhism in Tibet represents a rich history that saw at least five major schools of monastic discipline.

The most fascinating thing about Gongkar Monastery, built in 1464, are the old paintings decorating the chapels of the assembly hall and on the second floor. The paintings have been well-maintained and redone. They depict emotional portrayals of deities and demons among a black cosmos. Some murals show the suffering we can expect in the Buddhist hells... Most of the creatures are stick figures, depicted in golden lines upon a stark, glossy black background. These pictures of hell are sure to provoke anguish, panic and fear in anyone who views them. Jamyang Khyentse Wangchuk originated the "Khyenri School" of Sakyapa painting in the 16th century. Stylistically, the paintings are evocative. Their imaginative flare is fantastic and highly original. These symbolic images of ultimate destiny inspire a certain deja-vu for some of the modern schools of the sort we characterize as being sincerely unsentimental, that kind of painting intended purely to rouse spirit, exactly like the shocking types of naive realism so popular in the 19th and 20th century; the artist has made much of the angst consequent upon being born in an age too limited for the freedom of mind that ought to be possible. The murals do look redone, or updated. The portraiture of various monsters and hells makes me wonder: what would happen to us if we could believe that the worst of fates was no longer something we had to worry about? We would be more than free, we would be enlightened and peace would reign everywhere. This Sakyapa art reminds me of the Hieronymous Bosh painting I once saw in the Prado of Madrid: it emits a spark that feels closely akin to Bosh's early modern spirit. One portrait depicts an elephantine Hevajra as he projects a gleeful, terrifyingly grotesque horror: his devilish eyes bulge and blaze over his blood-lusty mouth. I suspect that these disturbing paintings were created to inspire the poor monks to concentrate on their devotions - as if meditation and Tantric chanting alone might help to obliterate the bleak fate implied by the menacing emanations over their heads. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the paintings. I suggest you pay a visit to Gongkar.

As we enter the main assembly hall, a dozen monks are up already and vociferously chanting religious tunes - keeping busy. My host leads me upstairs to a smaller room that contains a shrine; on the back wall a mural depicts the most gruesome Buddhist hell: guilty souls are depicted as grisly corpses, grimacing and skewered on giant thorns while birds, dogs and snakes dine on their doomed entrails. Another classical painting lays out the original plan of Gongkar Monastery; my tour guide points out that most of the buildings shown in these painting were destroyed by the Chinese Red Guards during the nineteen-sixties. Anyway, here's a photo of a well-preserved monastery near Dege in eastern Tibet...

The morning stays sunny. Feeling charged with fresh hospitality and vision, I mount my bike and aim to reach Dratang and Mindroling Monasteries. It's only ten or twelve kilometres to the modest airport from which passenger flights connect central Tibet to various points abroad. The airstrip lies on a bit of very flat earth adjacent the Brahmaputra River valley. I stop in town to eat some steamed pork dumplings.

This main road east is less busy than I thought it would be. A few busses, the odd black Volkswagen and one or two grey Toyota land-cruisers make their way here and there. But there are no huge convoys of military trucks like those of western Tibet. One big tourist bus is parked by the way. Some European fellows stare at me as I glide by. Soon, I meet a group of Tibetan boatmen standing beside their Yak skin boats by the road. They wait for a truck to come and take them to one of the flooded villages along the river. Most fields are intact, but the flood plain glitters with telltale signs of inundation.

At noon I reach the county seat of Dranang and eat lunch. The restaurant does the usual Sichuan delights. I follow the signs to Dratang Monastery. I pass a shop-front cinema blasting a kung-fu kill-film at full, ugly volume; smash, bang, crash, yell - the bad movie sounds as irritating as it is frightening. Then, I reach the temple. Not long after I clambered up the steps inside, a policeman is quick to follow me inside. He's a Public Security Bureau (PSB) officer, and a Tibetan. No wonder every person along this road was looking so cagey, and wondering what I was doing here. I've turned off the main road for only two kilometers and I'm already off limits.

The Tibetan policeman looks at my papers and informs me that I must get a permit to visit this area. He wants me to go with him, so I tell him sorry and then beg him to let me go, adding that I'm on my way to visit the big town of Tsetang, where I can try to get a permit... (I'm telling lie, because I know that it is impossible to get a permit there: carefully herded tourist groups only are entitled to such privileges. Secretly, I'm still planning to go to Mindroling and Samye monasteries, which are on the way to Tsetang.) The policeman warns me not to visit Samye before I get a permit. After the policeman lets me be and goes away, the elderly gate-keeper of Dratang opens up the main door so I can wander around inside for a few fleet looks. This place is also a Sakyapa monastery and the black, gold and red paintings of the Khyenri school also predominate. Like Gongkar, the imagery throngs with fierce door guards and ghoulish grinning skulls; living death is an important motif for the demonology of Tibetan Buddhism. Here's another monastery, Sera, near Lhasa...

Back on the road, I forget the policeman and make time towards Mindroling Monastery. Soon, I spot a dinky sign written in English pointing up to Mindroling. The path is made of rocks and sandy clay. It leads uphill into a luscious agrarian valley. Farmsteads, some of them very cozy and ample, dot the fields all around. I struggle to climb up the last hill, through the pretty village of Mondrubb. Then, four or five boys help push my bike up the last steep kilometre to the pearly gates. On the way up, a boy surreptitiously swipes one of my water bottles and disappears. I don't notice this crime right away. When I do, I quickly instruct two of the boys to chase him and retrieve the bottle, explaining the reward will be three yuan each... Five minutes later, the boys return with my water bottle and I give them three yuan, failing to hear their pleas for double... Above us glow the rooftops of Mindroling Monastery, the sun, very soon to set.

Mindroling is an old monastery, but not so ancient as many others around this area. It was established in 1670, primarily as a library for the Nyingmapa School. The Nyingmapa comprise one of the oldest sects in Tibet; as such, they are responsible for preserving the earliest Tibetan Buddhist traditions, dating from the first translation of Sanskrit texts at the time of Padmasambhava's mission to Tibet. Not far away from Mindroling, at Samye Monastery, the establishment of Buddhist monasticism took place a thousand years ago. Much of Mindroling, like the Tsuklakang, the Sangak Podrang, along with the monks' cells along the courtyard, are all kept in decent repair. But the whole place seems to be half-deserted and supports a smaller populace than it did long ago. The heavy flagstones of the courtyard seem much less worn out than this dull prose.

I get my towel and soap and join two monks by the ancient stone well for a wash. The spring water is brisk and cold, but I need to rinse away all the dust. A monk approaches me and he wants my name, address and 10 yuan for the privilege of staying the night. Then, he shows me into a room next to the entrance. I make a bed from some floor cushions. But the room is very cozy with a pleasant big window.

I come out to sit on the steps. A monk volunteers to show me inside the main temple. The imagery of Mindroling's art work is a world apart from the Sakyapa monasteries. The most vivid paintings are found upstairs in a rooftop chapel, the Lama Lhakhang. Here, the yellow and red images show a long line of disciples along with a vivid portrait of Samantabdhara in union with Samantabhadri; the male and female in sexual union symbolize two aspects of a single identity, the subjective and objective correlatives of the "primordial" Buddhas who comprise all reality. Fascinating and complex metaphysics are at play here - and understanding depends on which interpretation you emulate. The history of Buddhist philosophy, I feel, is inextricably mingled with Hindu influences; after all, the same folk invented both religions.

I need rest and eat my fill in the dim light of a candle. Somehow, I find energy enough to write myself asleep.