In curt Chinese she stopped him short. 'Speak Chinese!' she commanded. His tone changed to indignation and he switched language. It appeared that the dress and the painting were nothing more than a sham for the next bus of tourists.

We were led to our rooms through a circular garden with flower-beds radiating out from its centre. Around the edge of the circle, positioned just like a tribe, were Tibetan tents, not the black yak-hair variety that we had just come from but white festival marquees with blue swirling patterns on them.

'Wow, real tents! This is great,' exclaimed Tsedup, prepared to forgo his displeasure. I could tell that he was beginning to worry about whether my mother would be happy staying in a tent again. But his fears were allayed when he reached the entrance to ours. As he touched the white surface, his face fell. It was concrete. The inside was fitted with all the usual hotel amenities, TV with thirty channels, plastic shower slippers, hot water twice a day. It was surreal.

Tsedup and I took a rickshaw into town to meet Amnye. A collection of lethargic drivers lazed around the gate of the hotel and we took our pick, haggled, and were ripped off. It was a motorbike with a metal cart attached and it buzzed with great ferocity along the road, past terracotta mud huts and over layers of barley straw. The local farmers required the assistance of passing vehicles to crush their barley husks and release the seed. We crossed the bridge over the river, passing rain-washed prayer flags and hundreds of red and gold prayer wheels lining the wall of a monastery. Nomads and monks were circumambulating the lamasery in the early evening light, performing their kora, turning each wheel as they passed it. They would be reciting the Buddhist mantra Ommani padme hum, as they moved clockwise round the temple, although I couldn't hear them for the rickshaw's whine.

We alighted at the White Conch Hotel in the centre of town where we were due to meet Tsedup's father. Inside, the Amdo receptionist said that he had not been there and that there was no note. We decided to check out the Tibetan hotels and come back later. Perhaps the bus had been delayed. We walked slowly in the gutter as cycle rickshaws clanked past, churning up the dust on the tarmac road. On either side of the street we passed shops crammed with hats, shoes, cauldrons, kettles, steamers and piles of plastic buckets. This was where the nomads came to stock up on provisions. The prices in Labrang were often much lower than in their own nearby towns, so it was not uncommon for a pilgrimage to be combined with an annual shopping spree. They bartered loudly with the Chinese owners, often in their own language, so both parties were left shouting over the other in total incomprehension. Most of the nomad men could speak basic Chinese, and for women, most transactions were covered by a knowledge of numbers and the word for noodle soup. But some of the older generation were none the wiser. Pointing and shouting seemed to work best.

Eating-houses with names such as Snowlands Restaurant and Yak Restaurant cluttered the balconies above the street. Inside, monks stared unblinking at sunburnt backpackers chomping nostalgically on fried omelettes and honey pancakes, while a group of Muslim boys, in white caps, chopped and steamed and stoked in the grimy back kitchens. On the pavement stood a wooden stall hung with yak and sheep carcasses. The fat had yellowed in the heat and had seduced a cloud of flies into frenzied activity. A bored and bearded Muslim man in a blue worker's uniform swatted them lamely with a dead yak's tail. Next to him, under a small striped parasol, sat an equally bored-looking Chinese girl in red nylon trousers and a frilly flowered blouse. She was selling ices from her refrigerated cart and her face was covered in white makeup that stopped at her jawline, revealing a tawny neck. This painted mask was completed by a perfect circle of neon pink rouge on each cheek. She looked like an Aunt Sally. It appeared that, unlike their western counterparts, these Chinese women loved to be white. Instead of topping up on bronzer they bought ivory sticks of foundation to smear it all over their faces.

We reached the side-street just before the monastery. A row of ramshackle hotels stretched the length of the earthy track opposite stalls of Tibetans selling trinkets. Beyond, a green field of barley waved to the wooded hills. At each doorway Tsedup asked if anyone called Karko was staying there. He knew that his father's favourite hotel, the Dolma, was in this street so he left a message there that we were at the hotel by the river. Then we caught another rickshaw up to the monastery. Tsedup was taking me to meet the monks from his tribe who lived there.

We pulled up alongside a huge wall stained with clay water. The red-brown expanse was divided by a narrow passageway leading to a golden-roofed temple. We dismounted the sputtering vehicle and Tsedup had a short dispute with the driver over the fare, then we entered the shadow of the alley. About twenty yards down and set in the right-hand wall was a wooden door. Tsedup pushed it open and a brass bell tinkled above our heads as we stepped over the threshold.

We had entered a courtyard bordered by beautifully constructed wooden rooms on all sides. It was like a sanctuary from the outside world. 'Arro! Tsedup called. Immediately a monk appeared from inside one of the rooms and made his way towards us over the wooden porch. He was dressed from head to toe in the customary fuchsia robes with a patchwork of pink silk on the bodice of his tunic. He beamed from ear to ear when he realised it was Tsedup and they embraced warmly, then Tsedup introduced me and we shook hands and smiled.

Aka Damchu led us into the cool of his room and prepared some strong tea on his iron stove. The room was simple and immaculately clean, symmetrical in shape, with a sleeping platform on either side spread with colourful Tibetan rugs. In the centre of each platform was a low wooden table painted orange with small drawers in each side. On one of the tables lay an old traditional Tibetan book, not bound, but a long, thin sheaf of thick sepia-stained paper with calligraphy on each page. After a page had been read it was lifted with great care from the top, turned over and placed down on the table above the pile. This book had been left open in such a manner and I concluded that we had disturbed his contemplation. He didn't seem to mind, though, but chatted amiably with Tsedup, catching up on the years of news with the usual animated exclamations characteristic of the nomads.

I nodded and smiled as I sipped the black tea. In the calm atmosphere of the cool room I took in the beauty of the space. Along the length of the back wall were shelves of books and a cupboard painted with peacocks and tigers. Above it sat a glass-fronted cabinet containing more books, thib, butter lamps and photographs of Tibetan lamas with kadaks draped around them. Everything inside the room and out had been painstakingly carved and painted by hand. Tsedup told me that the money for the construction of the monks' quarters had been provided entirely by his tribe.

It wasn't long before the other monks began arriving, their meditation punctuated by the guffaws coming from our room. Each one greeted Tsedup with great joy and they hugged. The Tibetans were fond of stories and soon they were all sharing memories of their past together. Aka Damchu used to chase yaks with Tsedup in the grassland when they were boys; Aka Tenzin was Tsedup's mother's cousin's son; all were either related or had shared some particular intimacy with him. They were not all named 'Aka', however: all monks are addressed by this respectful title. It was a great reunion. I had never been in the company of so many monks at once and was humbled, especially as I was a woman in their chambers. But they were not interested in formalities and made us stay and eat tuckpa with them. We sat slurping together as the night came down.