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Tibet is a place of pilgrimage. To Tibetans, for whom religion
encompasses all, sacred sites are everywhere: city monasteries, holy
boulders and hermit caves. The longer and harder the journey, the more the merit.

For Westerners who worship superlatives, Tibet's Mecca is Mount Everest, the chimney on the proverbial roof of the world. A mountaineer can aspire no higher than its 8848 meters (29,493 feet). Tibetans call her Qomolangma, "Goddess Mother of the Universe;" outsiders know it as Everest, named for the head surveyor who first pinpointed the heights of the Himalayas.

Whereas foreigners tend to claim mountain ascents for themselves or their countries, when Tibetan people reach the top of a pass, they yell "Victory to the gods!", add a stone to the cairn and scatter "wind horses," paper prayers read by the breeze. Small Buddhist flags are strung up like party banners along pilgrim routes, another efficient way to generate prayers.

When it comes to pilgrimage, Tibetans are more apt to circle a mountain than to scale it. Everything goes round in Buddhism. Our current existence is just one cycle in an infinite spiral of lifetimes, the only escape being enlightenment. Many pilgrims visit a long procession of sacred places, making a series of clockwise circuambulations (koras) at each. The main kora circles the place itself, which can take an hour for a monastery, or a week around one of Tibet's many hallowed lakes or mountains. Countless prayer wheels must be turned as well, to send the words flying.

Western and Tibetan pilgrims converge on the Barkhor, the social center of Lhasa, Tibet's capital city. The Barkhor's markets supply visitors with such necessities as prayer beads, wheels and flags; altar lamp-butter; white ceremonial scarves; mandalas mounted on gold-laced silk; and oversized hats and sunglasses, protection against Tibet's razor sun. This marketplace surrounds the Jokhang, which was constructed in the 600s to house a Buddha image. The Jokhang's entrance is obscured by clouds of burning juniper and crowds of prostrating pilgrims.

The Barkhor is a microcosm of Tibet. School kids in sporty red, white and teal uniforms sing hellos; old women turn tinny prayer wheels and mumble mantras, their faces lit with thousands of smiling wrinkles. Open-air pool tables host young male nomads sporting red-tasseled braids and necklaces of fist-sized turquoise. Saleswomen in striped aprons loudly snap gum as they rope in customers, while monks and nuns in maroon robes and tennis shoes read loose-leaf scriptures as they beg for money.

Many of Lhasa's street vendors are Uighur Muslims from Northwest China, their round eyes and veiled wives sticking out in the crowds. Sadly, Tibetans are becoming just another minority in their own capital. The government's most recent tactic to integrate Tibet into the Motherland has been to water it down with Han Chinese, rewarding those patriots who endure Tibet's extremes with salary bonuses and permission to have extra children.

Chinese and Tibetans do mix in the city, however awkwardly. Tibetans eat Chinese food and watch Kung Fu movies day and night; Chinese tourists come to the Potala, the empty, should-be home of the Dalai Lama, and have their photos taken in traditional Tibetan costumes. Many Chinese truly do not know their government has desecrated Tibet's monasteries, destroyed its environment, and killed and tortured more than one million Tibetan people, whose brethren can not forget these facts.

I leave Lhasa to pay respects to the mother mountain, suffering two days in the back of a cold, hard and dirty truck to see her. The truck mounts a 17,000-foot pass, and I joyfully pick out Qomolangma's face from a line-up of white pyramids.

My stop is Tingri, a roadside village overrun by young ruffian beggars whose skin is hard as armor. I strike a deal here for a yak to take my pack to Everest's base camp. The trail cuts through bright, fertile terrain, where puddles hide in tall orange reeds and reflect purple and red peaks.

When I start losing strength, Qomolangma re-appears, beckoning me to her cool diamond facets. Once near the mountain's feet, I can feel her bitter, icy breath and see the texture of her tough snow coat, its folds purple with shadow. After three grueling days of walking, I finally reach the monastery below Everest.

Riding away again, the truck climbs until the snowy beauties are again side by side. Like a permanent miracle, the highest point on earth swings before me, swerving with each drunken curve of the road. It's another step of my kora around Mother Earth, which will soon take me back where I started.