Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
KAILASH & MANASAROVAR BOOKS
The following books about Mt Kailash, Lake Manasarovar and the surrounding area are
guaranteed to whet your appetite for adventure. Charles Allen's A Mountain in Tibet
chronicles the hunt for the sources of the region's four great rivers and is perhaps the
best introduction to the region. Allen's follow up, The Search for Shangri-La,focuses on
the region's pre-Buddhist heritage and is also a great read. The Sacred Mountainby John
Snelling reports on early Western explorers, including those who turned up in the early
1980s when the door to China and Tibet first creaked narrowly open.
The Kailash chapters in German-born Lama Anagarika Govinda's The Way of the White
Clouds(1966) includes a classic account of the pilgrimage during a trip to Tibet in 1948.
Sven Hedin's three-volume Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries & Adventures in Tibet(1909-13)
will keep you company for many a long night on the Changtang plateau. Hedin was the
first Westerner to complete the Mt Kailash kora.
Books such as Kailas: On Pilgrimage to the Sacred Mountain of Tibetby Kerry Moran
(with photos by Russell Johnson) and Walking to the Mountainby Wendy Teasdill may
make you jealous that you didn't get to the mountain just a decade or two earlier. Both
highlight the much greater difficulties (and, in their eyes, rewards) that one could experi-
ence on a pilgrimage as recently as the late 1980s.
The more scientifically inclined can turn to Swami Pranavananda's Kailas Manasarovar,
an account of the author's findings over numerous stays in the region between 1928 and
1947. The topic was reprinted in India in 1983 and you should be able to find a copy in a
Kathmandu bookshop or online.
Most recent is Manosi Lahiri's Here be Yaks,an unpretentious travelogue that details a
more recent Indian pilgrimage to the region, with a special focus on defining the source of
the Sutlej.
Darchen
0897 / Elev 4670m
Nestled below the foothills of Mt Kailash, the small town of Darchen (Tǎqīn) is the start-
ing point of the kora. It is a rapidly expanding settlement of hotel compounds, tourist res-
taurants and newly built blocks, much improved on the miserable hovel that greeted travel-
lers to Kailash a few years ago. Most travellers make use of the town's hot showers, res-
