They lost the guide when they were discovered and chased by some villagers while walking along the road at night.  Tenzin and his companion hid on the slope of a mountain until after two a.m., until the villagers gave up looking for them.  They then descended and ran through the rain until they found a cave to stay in for a few hours.

In the morning, we climbed part way up a nearby mountain and waited for the guide.  We took off our wet clothes and dried them in the sun.  The guide never came, so we decided to head for a road we could see in the distance.

Capture by the Nepali Police

After avoiding several checkpoints on that road, they were finally caught by the Nepali police at a checkpoint on a bridge.

We knew about the checkpoint, and we didn't have to go through it; we could have circled around it,  but we were exhausted and very hungry, so we just took the chance of going through it.

The police locked them up for the night and the next morning took them to Pokhara by bus, where they were locked up with some Nepali prisoners in a jail.  Three days later, twelve more Tibetans were brought in and on the fourth day they got on a police bus, which they were told would take them to the Tibetan Reception Center in Kathmandu.  Instead, the bus arrived at the Tibet-Nepal border near Dram.

Deportation and Chinese Brutality

They were told to walk across the Friendship Bridge back into Tibet.   But when they began to cross the bridge the Chinese border guards on the other side shouted at them to "Stop!  Go Back!"  After standing in the middle of the bridge for a while, ordered by Nepali police to go, and by Chinese police to stop, they finally did cross to Tibet.  Two Chinese border guards on the bridge kicked all fourteen of them as they passed.  They were registered and interrogated.

Then they took us to a pile of wood, gave us axes, and told us to chop wood.  They said if we stopped working for even a few minutes that they'd tie us up.  We worked for four hours.  The police gave us their leftover food, some rice and vegetables, and ordered us to clean the kitchen. When we finished in the kitchen, the police stood in rows outside the door and told us to come out.  There were about 20 of them and they beat us and kicked us as we came out the door, one by one.  After that, they locked all 14 of us in a room too small for us to lie down, and we spent the night there.

The next day, they were taken to a military installation beyond the border town of Dram, where they were interrogated again, and taken to court with some other Tibetans.

In the evening a high official came to question each of us.  He asked me, "Do you know Chinese law?"  I said, "I know it ... I know the punishment for what I did." [escaping Tibet] He said, "I know you very well ... I've seen your picture many times ... I know you've been in India."  I told him that I'd never been to India and that if he had pictures he should show me, because I knew he didn't have any.

The next morning, ten policemen singled out Tenzin for interrogation.  They questioned and beat him for half an hour, then ordered him to sweep the interrogation room.

I thought, "Why are they doing this only to me?," as they were punching my face and stomach.  Half of my answers were lies, to protect myself, and my family.