In a country full of spectacular natural beauty, Reting was a pastoral heaven. At 13,350 ft, the monastery overlooks this perfectly smooth green and placid valley, a milky snow-fed river running through the bottom. Above the monastery, we hiked up through a sun-dappled juniper forest, resting in mountain meadows thick with spongy grass and bright scattered clusters of yellow and purple flowers. His Holiness has said that he would live here if he returned to Tibet.