Tsetan Chomphel (b. 1976), Remembrance of My Friend: "That’s me, standing in the road. It is the time that I am leaving Tibet. I am on the right, in blue, and this is my friend. We are saying goodbye. I am offering him a kathak (auspicious white scarf). We use them during Losar (New Year), on His Holiness’ birthday or on a special occasion like this when someone is leaving and saying goodbye."

Gyalwang (b. 1979), My Sorrow: "We saw many people who were caught by the Chinese without passports. I saw them being taken to a little cabin. I felt very afraid and escaped from the road with the monk and my sister. We were separated from the group then. We reached Dram (the border) at night. If we slept at the border we feared we would be caught because they check at night. So we climbed up on the mountain and spent the night there, until morning, around 5:30. We met two Tibetan men working at a power station who knew the way to Nepal. It was a very steep slope. Because the monk was much older, around sixty years old, we used a rope to protect us. There were no trees on the mountain, there was nothing to hold on to. The stones were slippery and it was extremely steep. The monk told us he would find the way. But he did not return. I waited for half an hour and we started shouting for him. I shouted ‘Gyay, Gyay’ (an honorific). No one answered. I went to the other side and saw that the monk had fallen. When I got near, I saw that he was dead."