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Back in 2003, NASA began its much-anticipated exploration of Mars. But it could have saved its money. The red planet is here, on Earth. Tucked into the deepest recess of Asia, Tibet is the closest thing to an alien world most people might ever see.

Along the 'Friendship Highway' from Lhasa to Kathmandu I passed bleak landscapes punctuated by only occasional signs of habitation. Against their backdrop of impossibly tall mountains, Tibet's sacred lakes and rivers shimmer an eerily pure shade of turquoise. And after crossing through green pastures, arid rocky deserts and barren arctic wasteland in the space of a day, I found myself at the foot of a peak that looms kilometres above the rest of the planet.

In June 2004, construction began for a railway linking Lhasa with Qinghai, a neighbouring province in mainland China. Further plans are rumoured for a trans-Himalayan rail link to connect Tibet and its natural resources with ports in other Asian countries. But for now, the country is almost as inaccessible as it was before the 1950 invasion by Communist forces.

Inevitably a Tibetan road-trip begins at the capital, Lhasa, the only location with an airport. With the encroachment of concrete and glass, the city is beginning to take on the semblance of a typical Chinese metropolis. Yet the skyline is still marked most noticeably not by skyscrapers and satellite dishes but the earthy edifice of the Potala Palace, former residence of the exiled Dalai Lama.

There is certainly a Chinese presence in Lhasa, and the paler faces of the Han - China's ethnic majority - are beginning to outnumber those of the indigenous Tibetans. The Han speak a different language and Chinese characters are incongruously but compulsorily written above the Tibetan script on every shop front and road sign. With troop-filled military transports a regular sight, the alien influence is low key but obvious.

Monks and holy men no longer reside in the Potala Palace, which is guarded instead by steely-eyed People's Liberation Army soldiers. Despite the regulations enforced on tourists, the military men do not remove their hats as a mark of respect. It is as if they are making a point that the spiritual centres of Tibet no longer belong to the Tibetans. If asked, most Han Chinese will tell you that Tibet is and always was an integral part of China.

Nevertheless, despite the best efforts of the Chinese government the people still cling to their history, faith and culture. Pilgrims still chant mantras and whirl hand-held prayer wheels in a clockwise circuit around the Jokhang Temple, the central monument of Tibetan Buddhism nearby. There isn't even a McDonalds.

Soon enough the tarmac comfort of Lhasa is behind you. After a day or two of acclimatization and sightseeing, baggage and foreign tourists are unceremoniously packed into 4 x 4 vehicles and sent out into the wilderness. Though it's possible to get around the restrictions, outsiders have to apply for special passes and generally travel in supervised groups. Despite the Party's assertions that there is 'One China', the same applies to Hong Kong and Taiwan residents too.

Less than an hour's drive out of the capital and past the military and police checkpoints you are on dirt track winding past the squat and square Tibetan dwellings that dot the cinnamon tones of the barren countryside. Each house is adorned with yellow, green, red, white and blue flags representing the five elements of Tibetan Buddhism - earth, water, fire, air and sky.

It's difficult to see how anything can survive in this wasteland, but evidently it does. If only the same could be said for motor vehicles: the Toyota Land Cruiser in which the writer was riding conked out after two hours of juddering highway. No walkie-talkies, medical kits or mechanical spares in sight. I and my companions were on our own.

Make no mistake: travel in Tibet is no Disneyland holiday. Aside from the trials of the road itself (the Land Cruiser was eventually patched up and bravely crawled on behind the convoy until it reached a maintenance shop), Tibet's austere environment makes it a tough place to visit.

Chief among the problems you are likely to encounter is altitude sickness (also known as Acute Mountain Sickness or AMS). It randomly hits anyone unaccustomed to high living, regardless of physical condition, says altitude medicine expert Dr James Milledge. And since the syndrome mainly occurs at elevations above 3,000 metres it may strike anywhere in Tibet. Those affected can expect "a delay of from six to twenty-four hours before symptoms are felt," explains Dr Milledge. "Headache is usually the first symptom followed by general malaise, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting. Sleep is disturbed. The symptoms get worse typically peaking on the second or third day at altitude and remitting by day five," he concludes. The only real solution is to descend from high elevations to rest and acclimatize.

But no pain no gain. Far from urban influence you're in one of the least visited places on Earth and it's worth the discomfort. Just be warned (from the writer's personal experience) that AMS is no joke.

A day's detour from the Friendship Highway, beside the road ebbs the Yamdroktso Lake, crystalline and spiritual in its purity. Before it rises the first snowy hint of the Himalayas. Tibetans regard this as a holy place, though it may soon be damned by a hydroelectric project.At the roadside above the lake glacial patches on the mountains glitter in the sunlight. A spider-like edifice nearby is tangled with prayer flags and katas - white scarves for greetings and offerings - whipping and cracking in the wind. Meanwhile, women demand payment for photographing their yaks; the scenery may change but some things never will.

The road leads on to Gyantse. Surrounded by hilltop fortifications, a small wall of China, the town's Kumbum stupa is the largest of its kind in Tibet. (Known as a chorten in Tibetan, a stupa is a dome-like monument built to enshrine relics or commemorate holy figures.) Capped by the vaguely creepy painted eyes of Buddha, the many tiers signify stages on the path to nirvana.

The monastery looking over the stupa is crammed with thankas, cloth murals hung in a building for good luck, and images of Avalokitesvara, the revered bodhisattva of compassion. As in the Potala Palace, the walls are lined with hundreds of scrolls pigeonholed into the wall. Devotees stoop and creep along a low passageway beneath the scriptures. "To walk beneath this learning gives further qualities of the mind," explains the guide.

A short and painless drive from Gyantse takes you to perhaps the foremost highlight of the Tibetan Buddhism trail. Along the way, the guide tells a perhaps apocryphal story of Tibet's killer yaks. "The normal wild yak, the domardic," he explained, "just eats grass. But in the mountains there is the wild duong. It's been known to eat meat. If you see one coming you lie down and look small. It's the only way to avoid it."

The destination is Shigatse (Xigaze), Tibet's second city and location of the Tashilhunpo monastery. Despite the inevitable droves of tourists, if you haven't felt it already it is here - at the sprawling domain of the Panchen Lama - that you finally concede you are in another world. Tashilhunpo is populated by yellow hat monks, men shut off from the 21st century outside while they perpetuate their arcane rituals and traditions. Adorned with the oversized plumes of their order they go about their business in a labyrinthine complex of mediaeval alleys and passageways. Circles of devotees sit in the courtyard oblivious to the foreign presence while they prepare tomorrow's offering of yak-butter candles. The smell, not unlike rancid cooking oil, pervades every corner.

Besides monks themselves and the thrones and stupas of the Panchen Lamas, the monastery also boasts what the guide says is the world's largest Maitreya, or 'Future' Buddha, a golden effigy smiling enigmatically over the onlookers below. Another rough drive takes you past remains of monasteries rising like broken teeth from the jaws of the landscape (many were sacked during the Cultural Revolution), and then to Gyatsola, the highest pass in the world. At 5,220 metres, it is a bleak place to stand. The wind scars your eyes and face with beige dust and another jumble of worn katas strains against its fastenings.

We took lunch that day in a sheltered valley greened with the rare sight of grass. The sight of a bunch of foreigners scoffing chips out of styrofoam boxes soon attracted the attention of bands of goatherd boys and their animals. As the children nervously extended their hands to receive proffered sausages and bananas, I could see their skin chapped and crackled like the mud of a dried up river. It's a harsh place to live. Never forget it.

Driving on, rising above the horizon came the first real glimpse of the snowy caps of the Himalayas. Everest itself assertively pointed out its presence, a grey shard among the jagged slates on the roof of the world.

From the nearby town of Tingri, the journey to Base Camp North is another ride to endure as much as enjoy. The state of the road shakes your brain around your cranium like a pea in a whistle. Not what you need when the altitude is already encouraging a pounding headache.Set on a cold, rocky, windswept plain, Base Camp is an unassuming huddle of tents, portacabins and a lone stupa. Step any further and you cough up the substantial fee for ascending the peak. Though you can sit in the warm and drink tea in an overpriced refreshment stall, it's no holiday resort. It's the last place many climbers have ever seen.

But altitude sickness aside, I had been remarkably lucky. From below, the summit of Everest is generally only visible for three weeks every year. That day was the third in a row I had had the privilege of looking at the highest point on Earth, 8848m above sea level.The final day's ride from Base Camp to the Nepalese border takes you across almost every environment imaginable. The track peters out altogether and you are driving across bouldered desert valleys, punctuated by sparse grey tufts of vegetation. Suddenly the scene shifts to a snowy plain and the drivers expertly ford shallow streams in four-wheel-drive mode. One mistake and it's game over.

Ultimately the Highway snakes into Balkanesque gorges that plummet steeply to the green-blue-white of the foaming Yarlung Zanbo river. From nothing, conifers appear and then make way for deciduous trees. The vehicles pause under a waterfall for an impromptu carwash and continue to Zhengmu, the final call in Tibet. The border town improbably clings to the side of the near-vertical hill, winding its way around hairpin bends. Different ethnic groups, languages and cultures come together: Tibetan, Han Chinese and Nepali mingling in the illicit bustle and confusion of the final outpost. With the bleakness and beauty of Tibet behind you, it's a reminder that you're back on planet Earth.

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