Tibet: The Bradt Travel Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent new guide to Tibet
Review: Michael Buckley is a seasoned traveller to Tibet. In the mid-eighties, not long after Tibet first opened to foreign travellers, he was joint author of the first Lonely Planet guide to Tibet, and also of the first to China. He brings a maturity to this book that distinguishes it.

Tibet, the Bradt Travel Guide effectively updates and expands on the information in Michael's excellent but poorly distributed Tibet Travel Adventure Guide, published three years ago.

I would recommend the Bradt Guide as the first and best to read before a visit to Tibet. I make that recommendation as one who has travelled independently to Tibet many times and has acted as a travel advisor to hundreds of western travellers to Tibet.

I have read every guidebook to Tibet published in recent years. Michael's is distinctive, in having a most attractive, easy style, speaking as though one traveller to another. Michael is never patronizing or pompous, he does not pretend to know what he doesn't know, and he does not flaunt his knowledge; among writers of guidebooks, those are rare achievements. Despite them, Michael is knowledgeable (there are many quite surprising bits of information) and forthright in expressing his own considered opinions about cultural and political matters; but he seems to be sharing those opinions and his reasons for holding them, rather than preaching. In short, he is interesting, persuasive and readable.

The phenomenon of Tibet is so extraordinary and the questions raised by its occupation by China so profound that a visit to Tibet goes far beyond mere sightseeing. Many travellers find that their experiences in Tibet contribute importantly to their understanding of the world. The Bradt Guide is a book whose depth will satisfy the needs of what might be called the thoughtful traveller.

When the Chinese speak of "Tibet" they mean only the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region, effectively a province of China. Outside that Region are other territories totalling as great an area again, inhabited by Tibetans and styled by China variously as Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures (subdivisions of provinces) or Tibetan Autonomous Counties (subdivisions of prefectures). These other territories are covered by the Bradt Guide. Particularly valuable is the coverage of Tibetan territory in western Sichuan Province, Gansu Province and Qinghai Province - especially the important Tibetan territory of south-east Qinghai, seldom covered elsewhere.

In addition, some welcome coverage is given to Bhutan, and to Tibetan areas of Nepal and India, including the seat of the exile government at Dharamsala.

The presentation of maps is excellent. The usefulness of the section on Chinese language would be greatly enhanced if tones were indicated and Chinese script included: the foreigner, even with the benefit of tone markings, often finds it more effective to point to a phrase than to say it.

I hope Michael will continue travelling in Tibet and maintain future editions of this excellent book in the years to come.