We share some biscuits, applaud our driver and move on. Three hours on this road now, my mom is shaken and losing patience, but the clock says we are approaching 100 km. In the last stretch toward Xiahe, my mom comes apart and wants us to stop. It's been a hell of a journey--8 hours since the morning when we left Xining. She's an inspiration, as tough as these mountain folk. When the car finally pulls up at a hotel, it is close to 9 p.m.

In the lobby the receptionist bids us a courteous greeting and says, "My friends, sadly you must go back to Tongren. The town is closed." My mom falls into tears, and I remonstrate. It is apparently a result of the unrest in Lhasa in March. I decide we're not going anywhere until we've eaten and we go over to a restaurant and rest. Alongside us is a group of mountaineering Chinese tourists, who are welcome to visit the town. We are bewildered that there was no public notice anywhere warning foreign travelers about the closure, to prevent this inconvenience. This is an isolated place and we can't face the return journey now. The hotelier brings good news. The police have given us special dispensation to stay one night (owing to the hour and my mother's age-and because she is "ill"), but we must leave at 7 a.m.--again by private car, because the buses are not in service.

By the time we are in our beds feeling the cold mountain air, it all seems unreal to me. My guests are disappointed and we are mystified what can be accomplished in this way: stifling businesses in isolated mountain villages and presenting China to its visitors like this. In the morning, it is my turn to be dejected as we are woken at 6:30 a.m., with a car waiting to escort us away from the area. It's a breathtakingly beautiful morning and view, but preserved from our eyes further as we are ushered into the car. We proceed again.

We call these remote kinds of places "inhospitable" in English, yet every person on this trip was more than hospitable; indeed they were everything you want humans to be. I hear that Xiahe may be open now, and I urge everyone who gets a chance to go there to see the beauty of the scenery and the different peoples' living in harmony together.