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There are more Chinese in Lhasa than there are Tibetans. And with the new railway linking Lhasa to the frenzied cities of China, more and more Chinese are making their way up into the mountains, thousands of them, tens of thousands. Some are tourists. But many have come to settle in Lhasa, and quickly, so quickly now, Lhasa is becoming a Chinese city.

Except in the old town. I did not leave the old town except to take the bus to the Sera Monastery, a few miles outside Lhasa, where I settled myself in a courtyard beneath mountains dusted with snow and, as it melted in the afternoon glare, I watched the monks debate. I could not say what precisely they were debating. Perhaps it was the finer theological points separating the Red Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism from the Yellow Hat sect. Or perhaps they were debating the lunch menu. It was unclear. Once there were 5,000 monks in the Sera Monastery, but then, of course, China invaded, soldiers plundered the grounds, and the monks were either killed or exiled. Today, the monastery has been restored and several hundred monks reside there, where they spend their days studying, meditating, and impassionedly debating whether to have the mutton on Tuesdays or on Fridays.

On most days, however, I joined the pilgrims walking the Barkhor circuit around the Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s holiest sight. I liked the exoticism of it. It’s as much a market carnival as a devotional pilgrimage. True, in front of the temple’s doors, pilgrims with prayer mats and boards did their devotions in the dust. And some who did the circuit did so on their stomachs, genuflecting and prostrating themselves as they made their devotional perambulation. And many chanted ancient mantras. But elsewhere, through the twisting streets beside mud-brick walls, there was a lively market.

“Eighteen hundred,” said the vendor when I stopped to consider a prayer wheel. “Look. Gold. Turquoise. Inside very old holy parchment.” She opened it and pulled out a roll of paper with Tibetan writing. It had been browned and burned at the edges. “Very old. Very holy. How much?”

We bargained, until finally I had a change of heart, concluding that the prayer wheel was unlikely to be either very old or very holy.

“Four hundred,” she said, and chased after me. I considered until a passing pilgrim shook his head no. Very helpful, these Tibetans.

Inside the Jokhang Temple, I encountered a Chinese man hawking and unleashing a huge glob of phlegm. “You see these Chinese,” said the monk who took my ticket, laughing. “No respect for Tibetan culture.”

And still he laughed. A Chinese invader had just unleashed a loogie inside the most revered sight in Tibet, and the monk chuckled. Imagine Santa Claus in a maroon robe. Abandon the paunch. Lose the beard. The hair too. Give him a tan. And you have this monk. Unflappable. Mirthful. Always looking at the bright side.

I asked him generally how things were.

“It’s been very hard with the Chinese, though a little better recently. There’s been lots of international attention.”

The Jokhang Temple is more than 1,400 years old, filled with chapels and chambers and statues of Buddha. Nearly all the statues are new. After the invasion, Chinese soldiers ransacked the temple. And then, some years later, the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution trashed it some more and placed a banner on its walls underneath a portrait of Chairman Mao—Completely destroy the old world! We shall be the master of the new world!

Today, the monks have returned to the temple. The Dalai Lama, however, has not. Inside, I found the Dalai Lama’s big yellow cushion throne, disheveled and empty, and as I made my way up to the rooftop terrace overlooking old Lhasa, where I absorbed a vista of mountains, pilgrims, and palaces, I thought what a shame it truly is that the Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetans could not return to this wondrous city in the sky. Like them, I too hoped one day to return to Lhasa.

“Where are you going from here?” Cat, Lachlan’s girlfriend,