Each day we were invited to a different tent and I was beginning to learn exactly what it was to be a guest of the nomads. Pride of place was always closest to the fire on the top right-hand side and this was where we always sat. Plates were piled high with momos, the traditional steamed parcels of meat, like miniature Cornish pasties, along with deep-fried bread, hunks of boiled meat and yak intestines stuffed with mince and black pudding. Djomdi, a mixture of small brown beans dug from the earth, rice, sugar and melted butter, was always on offer, a particular delicacy, along with a bowl of tuckpa, a soup of rice noodles and meat. All this was washed down with a bowl of strong tea. They watched us intently, constantly urging us to eat more with the command, 'Sou! Sou!' They didn't mind if we abstained, but in Tibet it is customary to offer hospitality to a guest. Annay said, via Tsedup, 'We cannot talk to one another, we do not understand each other's language, but I can talk to you by offering food. It is the only way that I can communicate with you.' Communication was not a problem. In the tenth home, I tried to remember the Tibetan for 'I'm full', as I chewed tentatively on another morsel of fat. I had never been a great fat fan. I was going to have to get used to it. I was going to have to get used to a lot.

I could already sense the tribe's acceptance of me, and was amazed at their spirit of generosity. Most had probably never seen a western person before and suddenly I was their relative. I remembered Tsedup telling me about when he had first seen western people as a child: a fat man with a ginger beard and a thin woman with sunken cheeks, two ghosts eating noodles in a restaurant. He had run away. He had never seen such ugly people in his life. Today no one ran, they just stared – at our long noses. They were proud: I was their Amdo namma and they called me that often, laughing.

I didn't look like your average nomad bride, after all. I was a curiosity. Mostly I think they were just happy to be accepted by us. Years of repression and reproach from their Chinese neighbours had led them to believe that other people saw them as a barbarian race, a backward people. As a child, Tsedup remembered the whole family travelling on a pilgrimage to Lhasa. They stopped on the way in Lanzhou. None of the hotels would have them so they pitched tent in a field in the city. He and his father and brothers went to buy food and when they returned the tent was surrounded by hundreds of Chinese and piles of bicycles. They all covered their noses with their hands. In the middle of the staring, pointing throng sat Tsedup's mother, nursing her baby and crying. Gorbo was two months old. It was then that Tsedup began to question his identity.

Amnye, Tsedup's father, told us that just before our arrival a man from a neighbouring tribe had returned home with his fifteen-year-old daughter. He was a nomad but had settled in the city with his Chinese wife. His daughter had never seen his home but when he brought her to the tent she would not go in. She recoiled in disgust and sat in the jeep crying. Today, the sense of relief was almost tangible.

My parents were shown particular honour and respect. They had wanted to witness the reunion, to see their son-in-law back with the tribe, and despite the hardships, they had made it. I was proud. Initially, my mother had found it difficult to cope: she couldn't sleep at night because of the dogs, her pulse was accelerated and she had dizzy spells. We feared it might be acute mountain sickness, in which case she would have had to be moved to a lower altitude. She felt like a neurotic westerner, but she recovered with the aid of Annay, who brought her samker, a mixture of barley, salt, milk and water, and prayed over her as Mum lay in her tent. Mum wanted to tell her that she knew how much Annay had longed for her son's return – she had her own son and understood her pain. She had wanted Annay to know how long she had waited to meet her and how glad she and Dad were to have her son in their family, but she couldn't. Instead she gave her a picture of Tsedup and me on our blessing day, laughing.

At every home the families thanked my parents for looking after Tsedup in England. They were fascinated by my father's gadgetry and much was made of the camera, binoculars, penknife and compass he had brought for the trip. The father of each family, and Tsedup's eldest brother, Rhanjer, would ask him endless questions about the West and he, with Tsedup as interpreter, responded enthusiastically to their thirst for knowledge of the outside world. They stroked his arm. Body hair seemed a mystery as they had virtually none of their own. They admired his portly appearance and hearty laugh, and they thought my parents were beautiful, especially my father's huge green eyes. Compared to Tsedup's parents they looked so young. In fact, Tsedup was shocked at how frail and aged his parents had grown over the years.

My mother's sketching skills were a revelation, and Annay and Amnye sat patiently for her as she immortalised them. The tribe never once seemed curious about her hands. As a child she had fallen into the fire and they were disfigured; a constant source of anguish for her. She often hid them when meeting people for the first time: she didn't want to shock them or have to explain. Unlike their western counterparts, even the children did not stare or point.

The tribe's encampment formed a large circle of twenty black yak-hair tents in the middle of the grassland, in the shape of a turtle. In Tibetan culture, the turtle is the symbol of water and earthly spirits, so a family's home is believed to be protected if they settle on land with either water or earthly spirits. All the tents faced due south. As the sun moved from east to west in the sky, the beam of sunlight that penetrated the slit in the tent roof moved from west to east inside, telling the family what time it was. It was very precise. At eleven o'clock when the sun began to bake the cool ashes at the side of the clay stove, Annay would call Gorbo to herd in the yaks for milking. Our tent had survived four or more generations. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution it had been purloined and used for yaks and sheep to sleep on, but half of it had survived. It was later given back and patched up by the tribeswomen.

Every tent looked the same inside. At its heart was the fire. Women sat on one side, men the other. Most had an altar in the top corner. A small cupboard contained pictures of Tibetan lamas, small, brass cups, thib, for filling with water as an offering and butter lamps burning fragrantly. An enormous vat of yoghurt, cooking pots, wooden pails, water barrels and the milk churner occupied the women's side. Then there was a mountain of dried dung, its size a direct reflection of the women's industriousness. (The bigger the better, it seemed.) To the rear, under a sheet of plastic, were skin-clad boxes of butter, sacks of barley, rice, flour, cheese, clothes and rush baskets of tea. An injured tape-recorder sat on the battery box. The nomads have discovered solar power and every family had a panel, which was placed on the roof of the tent each morning to catch the sun's rays. Everything had its place, and although the tent became dishevelled at times, with the children running around, people eating, mud on the mats, every effort was made to treat it with respect and it was frequently swept with a small brush made from twigs. (This produced an amazing amount of dust.) Before Amnye returned the tent was always tidied and the mats positioned neatly for him to sit on.

Our tent was inhabited by Tsedup's father, Amnye Karko, his mother, Annay Labko, Tsedup's elder brother Tsedo, his wife, Shermo Donker, and their three small children; also Sirmo, Tsedup's youngest sister, and Gorbo, his youngest brother. Our arrival had made it slightly more cosy than before. The remainder of his family had married away, which was a blessing, as there were eight of them and it would have been a trifle too cramped if they had stayed. Rhanjer, Tsedup's oldest brother, had his own family tent in the tribe. Thankfully, we had our own white tent to sleep in, as did Tsedo and his wife, which allowed for a modicum of privacy.