“Yarchen is very impressive, an island covered with cells,” said Katia Buffetrille, an anthropologist and Tibet scholar at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris who visited Yarchen Gar in July. “I was struck by the size, not having been there before.”

“The nuns with whom I spoke, among them a nun from Ganze who had already been there seven years, were very happy to be there,” she added. “The cells you see on the hill are an indication of the deep faith these nuns have: They meditate in these tiny plastic cells where it must be very hot in summer and incredibly cold in winter.”

Some Westerners might call the settlement a slum. The homes are patchworks of boards and thin metal sheets, with the occasional piece of plastic tarp covering a part of the roof or walls. Narrow lanes wind among them. Depending on the wind, the air can be thick with the smell of undrained sewage.

The buildings have no running water. Residents line up with plastic jugs at public faucets at the edge of the settlement. They bring clothes to wash at those faucets, too.