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Gagging, I spew out the tsampa -- roasted barley meal -- that I'm sampling on the balcony of a Tibetan cafe, in Xiahe. It lands ugly, near the bowl of yak butter tea that I've already sipped, and rejected.

"Tibetan food is repulsive," I grumble to my wife. "They're lucky the Chinese invaded -- now they can get decent meals."

Carol frowns, horrified.

"Food imperialism is not the same as raping nuns with a cattle prod," she rebukes me, between tasty bites on her Sichuan bean curd.

Xiahe is ensconced high in the southern mountains of Gansu province, in rugged central China. It belonged to Tibet's eastern Amdo region until the 18th century; today, it retains a 45-percent Tibetan population. The town's centerpiece is the gold-gilt Labrang Monastery, which sequesters 1,700 monks and attracts hordes of Gelukpa (Yellow Hat Sect) Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims each year.

Carol insisted that we add Xiahe to our China tour itinerary because the "Lonely Planet" guidebook describes it as "one of the most enchanting places ... Outside of Lhasa, it's the leading Tibetan monastery town. Indeed, in some ways it's better ... "

"Xiahe?" Dr. Ming Hu questioned us the previous morning, as our crowded diesel train screeched into Lanzhou -- the Gansu capital. "Pardon me, but ... why do you want to go there?"

Hu is a gray-suited Han physician, schooled in both Western and Chinese medicine. We've been chatting with him since he boarded in Hohhot, in Inner Mongolia.

"We want to see Tibetans," I reply.

His brow furrows in puzzlement and disdain.

"Why are the Chinese in Tibet?" I quiz him. "Why did the Chinese invade?"

"Tibet belongs to China," he answers, abruptly. "We help them progress; they are behind."

"Is Tibetan Buddhism persecuted?" I ask him, knowing we both know the answer.

"It's a ... religion," he grimaces, pronouncing the R-word as if it's an obscenity. "Primitive. Superstitious."

Smugly, I turn to Carol with an expression that says, "See? I told you so ..."

Truth is, I agree with Hu's analysis -- unlike Richard Gere, the Beastie Boys and my wife, I am not sympathetic to the Dalai Lama's agenda. I've adopted, instead, the Marxist attitude of my grad-school mentor, an ex-Jesuit who despises all clerics.

"The Dalai Lama," he grumbles, "is a political leader; nothing more, nothing less. He's trying to manipulate world leaders with his faith, to regain his sovereignty."

The bus ride from Lanzhou up to Xiahe's 10,000-foot elevation is a terrifying, nine-hour winding climb. Barren hillsides stripped of all vegetation allow us easy views of the shattered vehicles lying twisted below us in remorseless ravines.

When we arrive at dusk in Xiahe's humble town square, grinning, dirty-faced boys wheel us in dilapidated bicycle carts past hairy yaks, emaciated dogs, wild chickens and nomads burdened with enormous bundles of wood. Traversing the Daxia River via a rickety ridge, we enter the Labrang Hotel grounds, festooned with Tibetan prayer flags.

That night, I toss and turn feverishly, plagued by the dizzy symptoms of altitude sickness and the adrenaline rush of arriving at this hot spot of exoticism and strife.

"I'm not impressed!" I sniff the next morning, as we tour the rancid gloom of Labrang Monastery's inner chambers. The 300-year-old edifice is adorned with damp tapestries, religious paintings and, most odoriferously, yak-butter sculptures of the myriad demons and deities that populate Tibetan Buddhism's cosmology. Burgundy-robed monks meditate all around us; their ages range from pre-teen to ancient.

"Tibetan esthetics are lush and sincere," my wife argues. "Gothic, in its rich colors and detail ..."

"That makes sense," I grumble. "It's from an ignorant, feudalistic, cleric-infested culture, similar to Europe's Dark Ages."

"And the yak-butter statues look like marzipan cake decorations," she drools.

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