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World Hotels - Here Be Yaks: Travels in Far West Tibet
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List Price: $17.95
Our Price: $17.95
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: The Intrepid Traveler
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9781887140720
ISBN: 1887140727
Label: The Intrepid Traveler
Manufacturer: The Intrepid Traveler
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 324
Publication Date: 2007-08-25
Publisher: The Intrepid Traveler
Studio: The Intrepid Traveler
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Editorial Reviews:
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Here Be Yaks chronicles the adventures of a group of ordinary people on an extraordinary journey to one of the most isolated corners of Tibet. From Lhasa they travel ever upwards along the ancient Tasam Highway, stopping at ancient stage posts and battling altitude sickness and exhaustion, to reach Mount Kailash, revered by four faiths. Here they perform the sacred hidden inner kora, or circumambulation of Kailash, each seeking a personal religious epiphany. The author, haunted by the recent loss of her husband, finds peace and solace in this sacred place. Her curiosity piqued by an old map, she also solves one of the few remaining geographic mysteries on the planet -- the true source of the river Sutlej, a matter of controversy for centuries. An adventure story told with a scholar's touch, Here Be Yaks represents an important addition to the literature on Tibet. Foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting and well written journey in Tibet
Comment: Here Be Yaks chronicles the author's experiences traveling in Tibet. She provides detailed descriptions of the land and people as well as the difficulties and pleasures of the trip. Her goal on the trip was Mount Kailash and to settle question of the source of the Sutlej River as well as a spiritual journey of her own. Most books of this type are not particularly interesting to read through but this one is an exception. She adds so much detail and history that you come to appreciate the trip as well as the country, the geography, the people, and the culture. She wisely does not include the political factors of the country except to the extent that they directly affect her ability to travel safely or provide an important historical explanation as to why something is the way it is. If you have any interest in Tibet at all you will probably appreciate this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fresh look at an ancient land...
Comment: Manosi Lahiri's book is a magnificent story of ordinary people on an extraordinary adventure. Mrs. Lahiri combines a cartographer's eye for geographical detail with sensitivity to the thoughts of companions, and a storyteller's flair for the interesting.
HERE BY YAKS takes the reader along a trail following ancient paths that are still lightly travel today. It gives the reader a glimpse of Tibetan culture which is often mentioned in casual conversation but is little understood or actually experienced.
The book has all the elements of a search for a Shangri La taking one through a kaleidoscope of landscapes and people in the solving of a geological mystery. It's a great read. I recommend it highly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Here Be Yaks is an amazing look at Tibet through a visitor's eyes, and highly recommended.
Comment: Her Be Yaks: Travels in Far West Tibet is a travelogue chronicling a group of ordinary people who embarked upon an extraordinary journey to Tibet's Mount Kailash, a peak revered by four faiths. They battled physical exhaustion and altitude sickness on their arduous journey, all to perform the sacred kora (circumambulation) of Mount Kalish and seek religious inspiration. Author Manosi Lahiri was one of this group, searching for consolation after the loss of her ancestors; in the course of journey, she solved a geographic mystery concerning the source of the river Sutlej, a matter that had been contended for centuries. Part adventure, part scholarly narrative, Here Be Yaks is an amazing look at Tibet through a visitor's eyes, and highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rancid yak butter and the source of the Sutlej
Comment: This traveller's account reminded me vividly of my own trip across Tibet in 1987. Twenty years later it conjured up memories of capricious weather, devout pilgrims, rancid yak butter, tea which might be better called soup, the unfathomable devotion of Tibetans, sunburned noses, indescribable sanitation, breathtaking temples and palaces, the appalling destruction of monuments and buildings by Red Guards and above all, the landscape. Is there anywhere else on earth that comes close to matching the colours, drama, inaccessibility and mystery of Tibet's topography? The star of this journey is the landscape, brought to us with the eye of a geographer. Not only does the author bring dramatic vistas alive as she travels from Lhasa to Tsaparang, she explains them too with textbook clarity. Her journey, part pilgrimage, homage and exploration, takes the reader to Mount Kailash, sacred to Buddhists, Hindus and Jains and more interestingly, to the little visited and destroyed Tsaparang, centuries ago the capital of ancient Guge in far west Tibet. Over the centuries it has been visited by Jesuits, Kashmiri Muslims and intrepid travellers and explorers, not always happily. But as the author recounts, the greatest destruction to Tsaparang and its temples and art, happened in our own lifetime at the hands of Cultural Revolution zealots. Still, with an explorer's optimism and determination, she scrambles up the ruins of Tsaparang into chambers hewn out of the hillside and discovers wanton destruction but also the vibrant remains of murals, hundreds of years old. To have come this far and seen what few of us can only dream of, is a singular accomplishment. Yet there is one last goal to tackle: a return to Tibet's landscape to research the source of one of Asia's great rivers, the Sutlej. Is its commonly accepted source near Mount Kailash and Lake Manosarovar correct? Or is there a mystery to be solved? Using accounts of earlier explorers, especially Sven Hedin and Swami Pranavananda, and applying a geographer's keen eye and GPS and satellite imagery, we can add the name of the author to her illustrious forebears. For she makes a compelling case for discarding the popularly accepted source of the Sutlej for another. This entertaining book therefore is not just a travelogue. It is a piece of history which on my bookshelf rests besides Hedin, Swami Pranavananda and Alexandra David-Neel's accounts of their journeys to incomparable Tibet.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Here be Yaks
Comment: This is a most gripping and unusual book. A good story, travel interest, personal feelings and if that were not
enough true scientific research! To anyone who might be planning a journey to Tibet this will give invaluable pointers over where to go, how to, what to take and critical cultural elements. The international perspective of the author is combined with local knowledge and insight of she and her travelling companions.
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