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Kumbum Monastery lies curled up in the hills outside Xining, on the border of the Tibetan plateau in central China. Kelly and I had peeled ourselves out of a minibus that morning, trying to look inconspicuous as we poked about the monastery grounds.

Kumbum is practically a self-contained city, with temples, halls and living quarters spread out over 400,000 square meters of hilltop. The population consists of half magenta-robed, bare-headed monks and half khaki-covered, broad-brimmed-hat-wearing tourists. Most of the monastery's visitors are Chinese, so the monks, like most Xining residents, were amazed at the sight of foreigners. As we wandered through the monastery grounds, shorn heads periodically poked out of random windows, like monkish Jack-in-the-boxes, calling out "Hello!" or, if they wanted to show off a bit, "Good afternoon!"

A youngish monk from Mongolia, who spoke a bit of English, took a shine to Kelly and decided to show us around the monastery. His guided tour provided the following information: "This -- Tibetan book" (pronounced "boo-ha"). "This Dalai Lama. This Panchen Lama. This -- Buddha." The answer to most of our questions somehow turned out to be "Six."

Still, this was a good deal more information than we would have garnered from the signs posted at each site, which were entirely in Chinese. One particularly beautiful wooden structure, we learned, was the house where the Dalai Lama stayed when he came to visit. Our guide's own house, as he explained to us a little sadly, was not quite so large.

The sun beat down on the exposed hilltop, and after we had seen our umpteenth boo-ha, Buddha and Lama, our monk -- who did not have a particularly ascetic build -- was sweating. I was wondering if he expected some form of payment for his services before we took our leave, but then he swiped his forehead with a corner of his magenta robe and asked us if we would like to see his house. Normally I do not accept such offers from strange gentlemen, but since he was a monk and all, we graciously agreed to accompany him home.

The monk's living quarters consisted mainly of one small room, dominated by a hard, high platform which must have been a bed. I found the lack of fluffy pillows and a soft mattress reassuring -- it made the presence of two women on a monk's bed only mildly inappropriate. Tired-looking, nameless paperback books lined the shelves above our heads. The adjoining room, which had a stove in it, was shared with another monk.

Our monk's name was Odzer, but his English name, which he wrote out for us very carefully on a scrap of paper, was "JIMES." Odzer told us that he came to the monastery from Mongolia when he was 13, or possibly 6, I'm not too sure. Entering a monastery seemed to be much like entering college, except students learn Tibetan, no girls are around and there are very few parties.

Odzer's friend came to visit. He, too, was a monk but came dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Despite his minimal English and our non-existent Chinese, we held a mildly successful conversation in which we managed to explain where we were from, and also ascertained that Odzer's friend enjoyed boxing.

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