Tibet

Rating:
Summary: Inspiration
Review: Ever since I was a child I have wanted to travel to Tibet, sadly I have only travelled to Ladakh and Nepal as a second best. This book gives me inspiration. Sadly, no book can ever remotely represent the majesty of the Himalayas, but this book does capture some of the essence. I look forward to the day when I stand at even one of the locations in this book and think back to when I dreamed.....

Rating:
Summary: lest I forget you, Tsaparang
Review: This stunning volume is the most moving pictorial of Western Tibet's landscape and people that I have seen (and I have seen a LOT of Tibet books). I am grateful to the photographer for preserving on film the remnants of Tsaparang's marvellous Buddha figures, most of which were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.

I journeyed to Tsaparang and Kailash in 1998. It felt like the edge of the world, and like crossing a great rift in time back to an earlier age. Sitting down with this book (and Govinda's out of print 'Tibet in Pictures', which has photos from 1948) I can almost smell the clean desert air again, and taste the dust which blows forever through, and beyond, the joy and sadness in Tibet.