Himalayan reading

Hi can anyone recommend good books on the himalayas... i love to read about travel experiences in the mountains be it by a professional traveller or spiritual soul. be it Ruskin Bond or swami Rama.

Thanks.

The French writer Michel Peissel's wrote some great Himalayan tales such as: Mustang, Zanskar The Hidden Kingdom, Ants Gold etc
or try Penelope Chetwodes Kulu End Of The Habitable World
or F.M.Baileys No passport to Tibet
or Spencer Chapman's Memoirs Of a Mountaineer
or Charles Allen's Secret Mountain
To name but a few KK

Spy on the roof of the world by Sydney Wignall

harish Kapadia's books - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harish_Kapadia

http://www.indus-intl.com/harish_kapadia_books.cfm

Himalaya by Michael Palin.
Well written laced with dry wit.

Another book that should be mentioned is Ekai Kawaguchi's Three Years in Tibet. He was a Japanese Buddhist monk who, in the very beginning of the 1900's and in search of original manuscripts, traveled through North India and Nepal and into Tibet (on foot!) and managed to stay there pretending to be a Chinese monk at a time when foreigners were not allowed, eventually meeting the Dalai Lama even. There was something of a rush at the time by different nationalities to be the first to have visited Lhasa and he seems to have beaten them all to it, but because he was an oriental he was largely ignored and forgotten by the West at least. (There's a memorial plaque to him somewhere in Nepal, and he seems to be remembered in Japan still.)

It's an entertaining and insightful (and bulky) read. Unencumbered by PC considerations this Zen monk is quite frank in describing his disgust and frustration at Tibetan superstitions and lack of hygiene; sometimes hilarious, sometimes irritating depending on your mood. At the same time he exhibits a deep interest in the culture he meets however, and he mustn't have managed to stay for three years incognito for nothing. His way of light-heartedly dealing with incredible hardships with next to no resources should also be uplifting to the modern traveler.

The book is or used to be available in India for a few hundred Rupees.

Scott Berry retraced his steps in the 1980's in his A Stranger in Tibet, which can be read separately or as a welcome addition to Ekai's book. I think it was Berry who also suggests that Ekai may have not gone all that unnoticed after all, but was rather silently given the go-ahead by (some of) the Tibetan authorities.

Recommended.

2 well known titles, both immense and breathtaking, available in many indian bookstores of course

Peter Matthiessen
The Snow Leopard
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and
Andrew Harvey
A Journey in Ladakh

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Both excellent books Macha especially Ekais own full version,a few other books along similar lines are Alexandra David-Neels "Journey To Lhasa" & "With Mystics & Magicians in Tibet" & "In the Forbidden Land" by Henry Savage Landor. KK

"Flash ou le grand voyage" by Charles Duchaussois....get a copy now if you haven't read it yet. It's a true Bible for "certain" travellers!!

Autobiography of a Yogi!

Autobiograpthy of a yogi cnt be considered as either a travelogue or a book by spritual soul on the himalays as it just contains a few references in a few chapters on the himalayas IMHO.It is a good read nevertheless.

i received as a christmas gift a book entitled "the heart of the world: a journey to tibet's lost paradise," by ian baker, a world-class climber and buddhist scholar, with an introduction by h.h. the dalai lama.

the book is a memoir of baker's journey with a national-geographic-sponsored team to find the long-hidden source of the "shangri-la myth." i confess i've not yet had a chance to read it, but it received stellar reviews from the san francisco chronicle, men's journal, adventure magazine, asian affairs, publisher's weekly, the wildlife conservation society, and a plethora of others as both spiritual and "up to its chin in physical adventure."

looks like a very good read!

yes it is wonderful.

I've also been fascinated by Alexandra David-Neel's "My Journey to Lhasa". I've also read Heinrich Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet", and "Return to Tibet". Interesting books have been suggested - I have to go to the library!

I reccomend the following two books for reading:

'Wanderings in the Himalaya" by Sri Swami Tapovanam is an unique combination of travelogue with sprituality.

'Touching upon the Himalaya' by Bill Aitkin is the collection of his articles which appeared in 'Himalayan Journal'

Sadanand