Heinrich Harrer, who traveled through Tibet 60 years before I did (and by foot, and for months on end), is perhaps the most famous Lhasa-bound Westerner in the history of travel, thanks in part to his book Seven Years in Tibet.  The record of his journey is a fascinating read.  Though I didn't have the chance to pick it up until two months after my travels through Tibet, it retroactively enriched my own experience.  While our paths were vastly different (and the stakes in his so much greater), there was still a sense of shared experience that I felt, at least in the sense of trespess (we were both traveling against official rules) and wonder (at the spirituality and landscape of the Tibetan Plateau).

The images below are a continution of the journey I described in Part One of "The Tumultuous Roads of Tibet".  In this installment, however, I'll be adding some related excerpts from Harrer's book.

Harrer writes, "Now the weather was continually changing.  Within minutes one was alternately freezing or roasting in the sunshine.  Hailstorms, rain and sunshine followed each other in quick succession—one morning we awoke to find our tent buried in snow, which in a few hours melted in the hot sunshine." This description of sudden weather changes could also fit the rapidly changing road conditions today.  In the course of an hour I saw a river jump course and comandeer the road (above) and the road turn into a mud slalom (below).

A day earlier I was on a bus that just missed having a very large chunk of rock crash down on it (it demolished the reinforced concrete roof above this short stretch of road, which, ironically, was meant to keep cars from being hit by falling rock).

Here a convoy of around 100 Chinese military trucks pass by.  Our bus had to pull off the narrow road for nearly an hour while the convoy rumbled past.

Lots of falling rock in this place

And a couple flat tires too, torn up when driving over fallen rock

Monks at a rest stop.  Harrer writes of Tibet, "Here one has time to occupy oneself with religion and to call one’s soul one’s own."

Harrer, while in a tent where a Tibetan woman was cooking, was “somewhat astonished when she slipped off the upper half of her great fur mantle, round the waist of which she wore a bright colored belt, without a trace of shyness.  The heavy fur hindered her movements, so she stripped to the waist and carried on happily.”  I, too, was somewhat astonished when the parents in this photo slipped their children a 640 ml bottle of beer, around which they placed their mouths, without a trace of shyness.  The bus journey was somewhat monotonous, I suppose, and the beer allowed the kids to carry on happily.

Lots of pool tables outdoors in Tibet

A field of rapeseed just a few hours outside Lhasa.  The bus pulled over here for the passengers to go the bathroom, shortly after passing through a police checkpoint where I was allowed through with ease.  Harrer writes about one of his own encounters with the authorities, "He asked no questions about our travel permit.  As we had previously reckoned, the nearer we came to the capital, the less trouble we had—the argument being that foreigners who had already traveled so far into Tibet must obviously possess a permit.  Nevertheless we thought it wise not to stay too long in any one place, so as not to invite curiosity."

The view of the Potala Palace from the roof of my hotel in Lhasa.  The Palace was once the home of the Dalai Lama.  And on this day, it was the mark of my journey's end.

Joel Carillet, chief editor of Wandering Educators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, follow his weekly photoblog, or purchase prints, visit www.joelcarillet.com.