Ugyen Trinley Dorjee, the 17th Karma Pa, respectfully addressed as 'Gyalwa' Karma Pa, fled from his Chinese guarded spiritual headquarters of Tsurphu in Southern Tibet in the night of 28th Decemebr, 1999 and arrived in Dharamsala in Northern India a week later on 5th Jan 2000. Piecing together the elements of the escape, made public so far, his escape story can be said in short like this :

He quietly slipped out of the window of his living room in Tsurphu monastery during the night of 28 December when his Chinese guards were glued to their TV set in their room. Security was already lax because the Karma Pa, like any other senior practicing monk, was observing his annual retreat since many days. Only his personal attendants were allowed to enter his private living room for food and other personal assistance.

A Toyota Landrover, belonging to another monastery, was used for the escape. Some monks from that monastery were on a visit and were scheduled to leave during night. The security staff was aware of this schedule and were already used to the movements of the car in and out of the monastery. Ugyen was dressed as a layman in a manner that he could pass for an ordinary Tibetan boy. Besides himself the party included two monk assistants and a driver and an attendant who would double as the second driver in their non-stop drive to the Tibet-Nepal border in the South-West. The driver duo had already done their home work a week earlier to study the route and Chinese security on the way. They had driven right up to the border post which is a routine transit point for Nepalese, Tibetan and Chinese businessmen and their cars. Ugyen's sister had left even earlier and had already arrived in Nepal to coordinate future arrangements for the escape party.

Just a few moments before Ugyen was to jump out into the street where the car was waiting for him there was a near goof up. A Chinese guard suddenly turned up on a routine round. A monk quickly sent a sound signal to Ugyen indicating him to wait. Luckily the guard went back as quickly as he had turned up. It was not a difficult task for a six footer Ugyen as the roof of the room from where he had to make his final jump out into the street was only about eight feet high.

It was the beginning of a non-stop journey into the future. Except for one small event the journey up to the border turned out to be smoother than expected. At one point the Karma Pa and three of his co passengers left the car to take a detour around an army post where vehicles were checked as a routine exercise. In those moments of anxiety they lost their way for some time but were soon able to locate the road and their car. Once on the road, they hardly looked different from any other imported business car.

However, for ordinary Tibetans escaping on foot from the clutches of their communist masters, the only option is to walk through knee-deep snow on tracks far away from habitation. The escapees' traffic is heaviest during the peak winter months of December and January as the Chinese army guards prefer to remain inside their rooms amidst sub-zero snow and chilling winds. Like any other escaping Tibetan their destination was, obviously, Dharamsala, the headquarters of Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile in India.

Back in the monastery the movement of food trays in and out of Karma Pa's private room and the sounds of prayers, drums and cymbals kept the Chinese guards assured that everything was normal in the monastery.

After crossing the border they informed their contacts in Nepal about their arrival. Their first priority was to leave Nepal and cross over to India as soon as possible. It was urgent because in recent years a sizeable section of Nepalese police and bureaucrats have won the reputation of being more loyal to China than to Nepal. More so when it comes to handling the escaping Tibetan refugees in the border areas. Of late, there have been dozens of instances when Nepalese police stripped the escapees of all their possessions and handed them back to the Chinese posts. In some cases the escapees were shot and killed by the Nepalese police. Strong protests from forums as high as the Amnesty International and European Parliament have been lodged with Nepal government but any significant change in the attitude of Nepalese police and bureaucracy have yet to be seen.

From Manang the party headed straight to nearby Mustang where their contacts had already chartered a helicopter for their journey to Kathmandu. In remotely located Mustang chartered helicopters are a common sight as they are frequently used by tourists and businessmen. From Kathmandu the party traveled by taxi to India-Nepal border where a local Rickshaw driver smuggled the Karma Pa to the other side of the border. Next destination in India was Gorakhpur from where they traveled to Lucknow by train. The next thousand km of journey to Dharamsala was covered in two taxies.