Zham Danang Chu bridge, Gasa, 2006

It's a twenty-minute walk to Dawa's house. As we cross "the Bridge of Prophecy," trout swim in the still pools between rocks and white water. Scattered bits of colorful prayer flags cover the stream banks and gravel bottom. We start up a steep road past a ragged cottage of bamboo and thatch under a thin, broad-leafed canopy. “They don’t pay rent or taxes and they’ve been here for over thirty years,” Dawa says, about his neighbors. “Anytime someone tries to move them they go to the King and he lets them stay. It’s Government land. Where would they go?” We walk past his neighbors’ well-kept vegetable garden. A staked cow grazes next to a little stream spilling through a culvert. The chime of small bell ringing with the flowing water breaks the quiet. We climb to a clearing below a steep hill of pines. A white Tudor house with a red roof stands above a terraced garden. Dawa’s wife Tashi, a tall, beautiful woman with long hair and bright eyes, greets us carrying their four-month-old baby.