This is a riveting firsthand account by Blake Kerr, an American doctor who inadvertently walked into one of the grimmest scenes of political oppression in the world. Kerr was visiting Tibet with his old college friend John Ackerly. They were enjoying the sights and sounds of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and hitchhiking to Everest, where they "humped loads" for an American expedition assaulting the mountain. Upon returning to Lhasa, Kerr and Ackerly witnessed a series of demonstrations by Tibetan monks greater than anything witnessed by foreigners since China entered Tibet in 1949.