Carla King
Excerpt: The Misbehaving Monk
His name is Gyalsten and he’s lived in Inner Mongolia for a month. His home is in
the Qinghai region in eastern Tibet. “But I walk India,” he says. “Police catch.”
He was walking over the Himalayas to go see the Dalai Lama in Nepal and caught
before crossing the border. His passport was confiscated and he was exiled here.
I wake at six the next morning to the bone-rattling sound of a jackhammer, check out
of the hotel, and stop by the old town for breakfast. My nose leads me to breakfast, shops
where I buy fat dumplings filled with vegetables and chopped mutton, and I pick up eggs
boiled in tea for later. Then I pick up Gyalsten to visit a temple ten miles away in the
mountains.