“No one feels like dancing and singing anymore,” says Kunga Tashi, the representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Americas. In lieu of parties and feasting, he is appealing to Tibetans to mark the passage of the year with silence, candle-lighting and burning incense in memory of those who have lost their lives in protest.

Lha Gyal Lo. Bhod Gyal Lo. May all beings be happy and well, as we celebrate Tibetan New Year.

Here are some scenes from a Losar past in Labrang Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province.

Music lesson for Labrang’s monks using the traditional 13-foot horns.

Monks of all ages wait for morning prayers and the only meal of the day.

The trapa (novices), enter the monastery around the age of six and become gelong (monks) when they reach adulthood.

Tibetan monks in Labrang, Gansu, China.

The ciak is probably the most demanding form of pilgrimage in the world. Prostrating themselves fully, worshippers cover tens, sometimes hundreds, of miles. Labrang, China.

Tibetan worshippers crowd the entrance to the main temple.

In busy Xiahe, close to Labrang, teens in their finery prepare to celebrate Losar, the Buddhist New Year.

Outside the Labrang monastery, many food stands sell sunflower seed, soya beans and noodles.

Once the Tangka is unfurled, the colorful image of Buddha is admired by hundreds of people in the square at Labrang monastery, Gansu, China.

One of the constants of travel on the road to Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region is the procession of pilgrims along the route.  It was on this road, on the way to Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province, that I first encountered a pilgrim performing the Tibetan Buddhist act of prostration known as chak tsal.  When I spotted him, I jumped out of the car with camera in hand and got down on my stomach to shoot just as he had laid out flat in front of me, face to the ground. I followed his every movement, each performed precisely – a couple of steps, palms together, click; another step, hands to the heart, click; hands to the face, click and hands overhead, click. Then he was back down to his knees and flat out on his stomach again, click.  Forehead to the ground, click.

After five or six repetitions of this exercise, I was exhausted in the thin air and sat by the side of the road for a rest, but the pilgrim kept right on going up the hill.  During the entire time I was shooting he never acknowledged my presence, praying and prostrating as if I were not even there.  I got up and followed to ask him a few questions.  He answered without stopping.  His name was Champa and he was en route to Labrang.  He had been on the road for two months, and hoped to make it to the great monastery in time for Losar, the Tibetan New Year.  From there he planned to continue his prostrations to Lhasa, a 1242 mi (2000 km) journey that he hoped to complete in another 200 days.  Any time I waver in my resolve to get to the gym, I think of Champa.

On their way to Lhasa, pilgrims prostrate themselves every three steps. Having spent weeks on foot, the family still has nearly 300 miles to go on this thousand-year-old road.

Faithful perform Kora and turn prayer wheels at the Segyagu Meditation Center, near Lhagong Monastery.

Pilgrims prayer at Chotonda on Chamagudao.

Cedar branches are burned for good health and fortune at Qambaling Monastery.

Prostration pads at Labrang Monastery.

Passing through Chamdo at rush hour.

Arriving at Jokhang Temple in Lhasa marks the end of their journey and the fulfillment of a life-long dream for Tibetan pilgrims.

The drink, with its salty, oily and sometimes rancid flavor, which makes it an acquired taste, is the national beverage.  With the fat and protein provided by the yak butter, and the tea providing a vegetable substitute, the soupy drink is a primary source of nutrition in Tibet, where the harsh climate and rugged terrain make farming and herding difficult.

Preparation of yak butter tea is as time-consuming and ritualistic as any formal Japanese tea ceremony.  Tibetans boil a chunk of special dried black “brick” tea for hours into a concentrate, called chaku, which is then added to water, salt and yak butter and churned – the longer the better — into a froth.  High in calories, it provides warmth and energy needed to survive in Tibet’s high altitudes and bitter cold.

In Tibet’s Buddhist monasteries and temples, where tea was first introduced as a caffeinated aid for long hours of meditation, days start early.  When I visited the famed Shechen Monastery, by 4 a.m. I was ambling down a half-mile trail to the temple’s kitchen building with the monks to start the fires to heat po cha. Two huge cauldrons filled with water were perched atop earthen ovens.  (Water boils rapidly in the rarefied air at an altitude of 12,000 ft. [3,800 m].). Red-robed monks stood above two huge cauldrons, half-revealed then hidden again by the smoky haze, stirring the soup with huge wooden paddles. Huge balls of yak butter, a bucket of salt and a full bale of tea leaves and twigs were added to the mix, as smoke billowed from the oven firebox, and steam filled the air. I was totally mesmerized by this medieval scene.

By 6:30 a.m., tea for 700 was ready to be served, as dawn broke over the valley.  My sole source of light for shooting was a single open door with a half dozen low-watt bulbs for fill. Thanks to digital cameras with high ISOs I’m able to shoot in available light in what would have been impossible conditions for film.  The youngest novice monks sped past me, up and down rows of thirsty monks who had been praying and meditating in the near-freezing temperatures of the monastery’s unheated main hall for the past hour, filling bowls with the steaming butter tea and running back to the kitchen for refills. Other young monks passed roasted barley flour, or tsampa, which is mixed into the tea for a hearty porridge or rolled into a bite-sized ball for a quick snack.

After many years of polite imbibing, I have finally acquired the taste for these Tibetan staples, though I have to say I prefer fresh yak butter, the less rancid the better.  I drink it often, as the Tibetans do, for an energy boost, and to take the edge off the cold temperatures outside. So I happily accepted a cup from my hosts at Shechen before heading out for another day’s shooting.

A young monk walks to a mountain stream to bring water back to the Shechen Monastery.

Stoking the fire for yak butter tea.

Yak butter is made using a traditional butter churn.

Preparing a pot of po cha or yak butter tea.

Black brick tea is mixed with butter and salt.

A steaming cauldron of yak butter tea will serve 800 monks.

Young Monks are up early to help serve the traditional rice and tea breakfast for the monks.

Monks mix tea into tsampa, roasted barley flour, to make a meal. The tea, seasoned with salt and yak butter, is brewed from leaves sold in bricks.

A young monk runs for a refill of butter tea.

Tea is served to the local faithful who are participating in a 10-day festival.

Tea time at the Shechen Monastery Summer Festival.

Yunnan is famous for its Puer tea, which is technically a green tea, but because of its unique method of fermentation, it yields a dark reddish liquid, with a rich earthy taste. Its leaves are rolled and dried, then compressed into bricks or flat disks.

Up to this point in my life, I hadn’t been much of a tea drinker.  Given the choice, I would usually opt for a black espresso to jolt me awake for most morning shoots.  And I had always thought of the highly ritualized Japanese tea ceremony as the highest level of tea culture.  But in Yunnan my Dai host, Yan Yi Di, who owned the plantation where I was shooting, introduced me to the finer points of Chinese tea.

As we sat on the verandah of his house, sipping tea from just-picked, dried and rolled tea leaves, Yan informed me that the Chinese scoff at drinking tea whipped up from a fine powder, as the Japanese do. The Chinese gong fu tea ceremony involves many stages of infusions, each one revealing a new subtlety of taste. Hot water is first poured over a small clay teapot and tiny one-shot porcelain cups to warm them up.  Next, a pinch of tea is added to the pot, with more hot water poured to clean the leaves. That water is discarded, and the process is repeated a few times. Then comes the first taste of the amber liquid.  More water is poured, and yet another taste, this one slightly different from the first.  The idea is to prolong and enhance the enjoyment of the tea through multiple infusions, stimulating all the senses.  After countless tastes, my senses were fully activated, and my caffeine buzz kept me wired for the night.  But it was the beginning of a new taste and appreciation for tea… I was hooked.

Terraces of tea unfold along the hillside of the largest tea plantation in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, the number one producer of prized Puer tea.

Tea pickers dot the waves of cultivated tea bushes at one of the three largest plantations in Yaan, Sichuan Province, where the northern route of the Tea-Horse Road starts.

Mother and daughter picking tea leaves rain or shine in Puer, home of the most expensive tea in China. Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province.

Tea trees grow tall and wild in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, and here a fearless picker balances in the branches of a 1000+ year-old specimen. The rule of thumb is: the taller the tree, the higher the price of the leaves.

Dai minoritiy woman perched in a 1000+ year old tree picking new spring leaves in Puer.

In Yiwu, tea leaves dry in the sun outside the oldest tea factory in Yunnan. This earthy-tasting black tea known as Puer originated in this area of southwestern China.

Puer tea is steamed and pressed into flat cakes as it has been for hundreds of years. Here at Yiwu’s Bao Pu Shan tea factory, seven generations have produced the highest quality tea.

At the Xuan Tea Factory, tea is steamed and formed into cakes in the traditional method using 29 kilo green stones. Each cake weighs 375 grams.

Packing Puer tea for shipment in Menghai – seven tea cakes are fitted into bamboo-shoot leaf wrappers. Horses and mules once would each carry four baskets loaded with six of these packages.

Black tea being packed into bricks at the Namse Tibetan Tea Factory in Yaan.

Friendship Tea Factory, the biggest supplier of black tea to Tibet, still processes tea into 10 kilo bricks, as they have for centuries, for transport to Chamagudao.

Mengding Shan, birthplace of tea. Statue of tea porters bearing 160kilo load of tea bricks which they carried over the high passes from Yaan to Kanding along the Chamagudao. Human labor was cheaper then horses as they cost less to feed then oats for horses.

Former tea porters and shop keepers in Huangyi, where the tea trade died in 1949 when a road was built to Luding.

Butter tea being served for breakfast at Renchen Tsering house in Zhaxigang Village.

Written in 1937, Hilton’s book was inspired in part by the work of the legendary National Geographic explorer/photographer, Joseph Rock, who once lived nearby in the town of Lijiang.  Between 1922 and 1935, Rock wrote and photographed ten 50+-page articles on the region for the Geographic.  He was also an old friend of mine, of sorts, since it was Rock, or at least his work, that introduced me to the Tibetan world.  In preparation for my National Geographic story on him (“Our Man in China”, NGM, January 1997), I immersed myself in his writing and photography about Tibet, and on my first trip to Zhongdian/Shangri-La in 1997, I photographed the same monastery, little changed since Rock described it more than 50 years before.

Rock was a formidable explorer, who spoke ten languages, including Tibetan, as well as seven aboriginal dialects of Chinese, and traveled on horseback with an entourage of up to 200 men and muleteers. His meals were served on a table with fine china, complete with linen tablecloth and silver cutlery. The Austrian-born Rock dined on Viennese cuisine cooked by a Chinese chef he trained himself. He even bathed daily in a portable bathtub from Abercrombie and Fitch, while listening to Italian opera played on a battery-operated phonograph.  I’ve always admired the man’s style and envied his expense account.

It’s a fitting tribute, then, to be back following in the footsteps of Rock as I lead my workshop students on a search for their own “lost horizons” in today’s real Shangri-La/Zhongdian.  Here are a few frames from my new book, Shangri-La [along the tea road to Lhasa] , signed copies now available through my website. Welcome to paradise.

Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa

Kawagebo, the highest peak in Yunnan, lords over the mist-shrouded Meili Snow Mountains around it.

Sumzanling Monastery in today's Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian): In words that could describe it today, James Hilton wrote, "(The valley was) surveyed, rather than dominated by the lamasery...a delightfully favored place."

A craftsman polishes the nose of a gigantic copper Buddha at a monastery workshop in Shangri-La.

A steaming cauldron of yak butter tea will serve 800 monks at Shechen Monastery.

Locals, who have been invited to Garthar Monastery during a festival, engage in the various stages of the highly ritualized practice of prostration called Chak Tsal, which means "to sweep clean."

Segyagu, the faithful doing Kora and turning prayer wheels at this meditation center with it's huge mani stone monument nearby Lhagong monastery.

The hillside above the Segyagu Meditation Center is obscured by thousands of flags, which send prayers to the winds to disperse blessings throughout the land.

Pilgrims proceed at a snail's pace performing the Chak Tsal, the Tibetan name for ritual prostration. Their journey from Qinghai will take six months, along the northern branch of the Tea Horse Road to the sacred city of Lhasa.

The early snowstorm veils a herd of yaks grazing along the Yalong River.

Silhouetted against the morning sunrise, a nomad encampment is situated along Route 109, near Namtso Lake.

They were a team – Galen, one of the most accomplished landscape photographers of our time, and Barbara, his wife and business partner, as well as a talented photographer and pilot in her own right, and so it seems somehow fitting that they would leave the earth together.  It was just far too soon.

Galen, always a generous sharer of information and advice, had a powerful effect on me as a photographer and as a friend.  It was an iconic photograph by Galen that inspired me when I was trying to figure out a new way to shoot the famed Portala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.  I wrote about this ah-ha moment in the final chapter of my latest book, Shangri-la [along the Tea-Horse Road], due out this fall:

“I wanted to capture a vision of the old Lhasa as it might have seemed to a trader arriving along the ancient Chamagudao, despite the tour groups and traffic and nondescript buildings of a 21^st-century city. A photograph taken in 1981 by my friend and fellow National Geographic photographer, the late, great Galen Rowell became my inspiration. In this shot, one of the most iconic photographs ever taken in Tibet and Galen’s most memorable image, the Potala is literally the pot of gold sitting at the end of a perfect rainbow.

To get this shot, Galen, well known for his athletic prowess, literally ran a mile chasing a rainbow, no small feat at Lhasa’s altitude of 11,450 feet (3700 meters). He had spotted the rainbow in the early evening sky behind the Potala Palace.  Panting in the thin mountain air, he was aiming for just the right angle that would place the rainbow’s end precisely above the top of the Palace. He nailed it, capturing an extraordinary moment at the most sacred symbol of Tibet….

I stood in front of the looming Potala, which dominates the city and appears to be part of the 700-foot (213 meters) hill on which it sits.  With the vision of Galen’s rainbow picture in my head, but without a copy of the photograph, I tried to figure out the vantage from which he had shot it.  I soon realized that it could not have been from where I was standing, on the front side, as there would have been no way to isolate the temple from the modern buildings of the surrounding city.

Following this hunch, we drove north along the backside of the Palace, in the direction of a rim of mountains that were opposite an extensive marsh at least a mile away. There was not a building in sight. In the middle of the marsh there was a lake, and in the middle of the lake I saw my picture – isolated in the water was a perfect reflection of the Palace surrounded by mountains, as if floating on air.  This was a view any traveler coming from the north, even three hundred years ago, might have seen as he entered Lhasa. And there it was, hiding in plain sight — my vision of paradise, Shangri-La. “

I like to think that Galen and Barbara are enjoying their own vision of Shangri-la, together, forever.

Lhasa's Potala Palace, the monastery that was home to the Dali Lama, is among the most iconic images of Tibet. The Palace seems to float among the mountains, hovering above the marsh in the foregrounds.

Viewed from the city of Lhasa, with its telephone lines, electric lights and traffic, the Potala Palace is brought into the focus of modern Chinese life.

From the famed horse festival of Nakchu to the religious celebrations at Shechen Monastery, all roads lead to some sort of revelry.  And most summers, visitors are welcome to join in.  But since the early June closing of the Tibet Autonomous Region to foreigners, things just got a lot more somber.  There has been no official word from the Chinese as to the reason for the closure, but most Tibet watchers agree that the recent spate of self-immolations by Tibetan protesting Chinese policies there were what prompted China to close the door.

I worry about what might happen to Tibet without any witnesses to the ever increasing Chinese control there, but I am also hugely grateful that I was able to complete work on my latest book, Shangri-la: Along the Tea Roads to Lhasa (White Star, Fall, 2012), before the door closed on the region again.  This is a place like no other on earth, and anyone who has the good fortune to travel there will never forget it.  The celebrations will go on – as they have for centuries – but the sense of Tibet’s isolation and in many cases, desperation, grows exponentially whenever the world is blocked from this place, as it has been so many times since 1980 when Tibet was opened for tourism. So in honor of the indomitable spirit of the Tibetans, I am sharing some photographs that show them in more celebratory times.

Though many of the festivals have roots in Buddhist teachings, by far the most boisterous are the many that celebrate the famed Tibetan horse.  Back in the Ming Dynasty heyday of the Tea Horse Road, the Chamagudao, Tibetan horses were prized by the Chinese for their endurance and speed and as many as 25,000 horses a year were traded for thousands of pounds of tea. But today, horses and donkeys are rarely used, save for in the poorest of villages. For the farmer, tractors have replaced horse-drawn plows; for the nomads, herding work once done by horses on the grasslands is now handled by motorcycles. And horse caravans, which were once the only means of long-distance transportation of tea and other commodities, have been replaced by trucks. The few horses we did see were idle, grazing peacefully in pastures.

But during the short summer month of August, horses once again serve a purpose – racing at the summer festivals. Once held annually all across Kham and Tibet, the festivals are now strictly limited in size, scale and frequency by the government, and they are often cancelled, especially if there is a rise in the number of Tibetan protests or demonstrations.

The Nakchu festival is the biggest celebration of the horse in Tibet, drawing as many as 10,000 people. Nomad cowboys on horseback arrive from every direction, charging in at a full gallop to the edge of the festival grounds.  They dismount with a swaggering flourish, knowing all eyes are on them. Everyone is decked out in their best traditional costumes: women in the long robes called chuba, draped in layers of gold and turquoise jewelry; men in Stetson hats, knee-high boots and long-sleeved tunics. Assorted contests and shows of prowess are presented, from archery to tug of war.  But the races are the highlight of the day. The racecourse here is said to be the highest in the world, and the small, sturdy horses that take part are uniquely suited to the altitude.  But for added energy in the races, I’m told that they get an extra boost, in the form of soaked tea leaves.

Vermillion-colored balloons announce that the equine festivities are about to begin.

Nakchu, at the crossroads of Route 317 and the Qinghai-Lhasa highway, holds the largest Horse Festivals in Tibet. The double rainbows arcing over a group of Chinese policemen are an auspicious sign for 2011's celebration; in 2010, it was cancelled due to political unrest.

Tibetan cowboys in their long coats called chubas and Stetson-style hats wait their turn to show off their horsemanship.

Nomad cowboys from far and wide gallop to the edge of the fairgrounds.

What was once a grassroots grassland festival is now an organized spectacle featuring military parades and mass performances by thousands of dancers.

Tibetan cowboy carries a banner which would surely please the government officials in attendance.

Young women in typically colorful Tibetan costumes primp before their upcoming traditional dance performance at the festival.

Every part of a Tibetan's traditional costume, from colorful robes to fur hats to necklaces and earrings, carry centuries of meaning and symbolism. Turquoise, coral and amber are believed to have healing and protective powers.

Not to be outdone by the ladies, these men wear heirloom costumes made with leopard and tiger skins and red fox fur hats, much to the chagrin of the WWF.

They're off for the main event: Jockeys on surefooted mounts tear away from the starting line at breakneck speed.

Teenage jockeys race Nangchen purebreds, long prized for their speed and stamina.

The most memorable of the peaks, the one featured in the posters for Avatar, seems to be floating in space.  As part of a move to capitalize on the huge popularity of Avatar in China, this 3544 -foot tall pillar of sandstone was recently renamed the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.  “Pandora is far, but Zhangjiajie is near,” goes the marketing slogan. And lest anyone forget the movie, huge billboards and flat-screen tvs blast reminders of Avatar at the entrance and throughout the park.

A forested island in a sea of mist, formerly known as the Southern Sky Column, is now Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.

More otherworldly pictures from Wulingyuan

Baofeng Lake is surrounded by lush foliage, and its emerald waters reflect the wild scenery surrounding it.

The world’s highest outdoor elevator, dubbed Hundred Dragon Elevator, emerges from a stone cavern into the sandstone mountains. The rice paddy in the sky (seen in foreground) is tended by local farmers.

The photographer aboard a model of a Pandoran banshee, courtesy CGI at the Park’s Photo Booth. Though the Navi tribe preferred getting around Pandora by banshee, Avatar’s designers used radio-controlled drone helicopters to photograph the eerie peaks of Zhiangjiajie.

The festival is dedicated to the goddess Mariamman, and though on the surface it’s a grueling, stomach-turning ordeal, it’s actually a raucous and joyous event.  I got to witness it at the Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia.  Datuk Chachar is unlike the typical religious festival as its devotees give thanks to their gods for answered prayers by skewering their flesh with needles and fish hooks big enough to snag a shark, all done in a trance and supposedly without pain.

The festival was the perfect way for me to show the Chinese diaspora that was a key part of a story I was working on.  Instead of seeing Indian faces, as you’d expect at a Hindu celebration, most of the participants looked Chinese.  They are, in fact, so-called Straits Chinese, descended from Chinese settlers who sailed through the Straits of Malacca during the expeditions of the great Admiral Zheng He and landed in Malaysia.  Here, the Chinese culture melded with the local traditions, and many of the offspring of overseas Chinese grew to embrace Indian Hinduism, some with a fervor bordering on fanaticism.

Impossibly loud drumming signals the beginning of the ceremony. Smoky incense billows from inside the temple.  Men in trances stare bug-eyed off into the distance, as temple elders poke long needles through their flesh. There’s no blood, but the whole operation looks very painful.  It’s surely painful to watch.  Next comes the procession – a three-mile walk to a sister temple.  Some of the faithful pull chariots carrying images of gods, using ropes attached to their bodies by hooks imbedded in the angry red flesh of their chests or backs.  Hooks and ropes tether other marchers to handlers, who hold onto the celebrants as if they were dogs on a leash.  Still others stagger down the road with pierced cheeks, tongues and lips.

Happy I could accommodate my daughter’s request, I offered to present my Datuk Chachar photographs to her class. She politely declined (actually, her exact response was “Ewwww!”), then said she’d go with a shot that she found online — of Jersey Shore’s Snooki doing yoga.  Namaste.

Most of the festival devotees are Chinese, descended from settlers who arrived with Zheng He's fleet. These Peranakan (Straits-born Chinese) have adopted many of the local customs and religious practices.

In Malacca's biggest Hindu festival of the year, Datak Chachar, celebrants give thanks to the gods for prayers answered by parading with spikes and hooks driven through their skin.

In the most extreme form of body piercing, a Malaccan kavadi bearer wears this cage of spikes and fishhooks as reparation for answered prayers.

At the peak of the Datak Chachar festival, the procession of penitents, skin punctured with fishhooks, passes through Malacca.

Malacca, Malaysia was China's first large-scale overseas settlement and now home of the Peranakan, or Straits-born Chinese.

The wounds inflicted by the spikes and hooks do not bleed, and participants claim not to feel pain while in their trancelike state.