In the year of the Wooden Bird (2005), it is the turn of Tongkor, a holy site near Gantze, in western Tibet, to receive the homage of several thousand pilgrims. The site is a configuration of three holy mountains which the pilgrims circumambulate in the course of a three-hour walk. Many of them take a vow to repeat this circumambulation, or khora, thirteen times. The path is strewn with prayer-flags hung from the trees and the rocks, with caves where masters have meditated in the past and with stones engraved with mantras piled into cairns. In the evening, the pilgrims camp together at the intersection of the paths. They leave the next day at dawn - full of eagerness, radiating an inner peace - for a long day of walking and prayers. September, 2005.