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    To a Mountain in Tibet
    To a Mountain in Tibet
    To a Mountain in Tibet
    Audiobook7 hours

    To a Mountain in Tibet

    Written by Colin Thubron

    Narrated by Steven Crossley

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    This is the account of a journey to the holiest mountain on earth, the solitary peak of Kailas in Tibet, sacred to one-fifth of humankind. To both Buddhists and Hindus it is the mystic heart of the world and an ancient site of pilgrimage. It has never been climbed. Even today, under Chinese domination, the people of four religions circle the mountain in devotion to different gods.

    Colin Thubron reached it by foot along the Karnali River, the highest source of the Ganges. His journey is an entry into the culture of today's Tibet, and a pilgrimage in the wake his mother's death and the loss of his family. He undertakes it in order to mark the event, to leave a sign of their passage. He also explores his own need for solitude, which has shaped his career as a writer-one who travels to places beyond his own history and culture, writing about them and about the journey. To a Mountain in Tibet is at once a powerful travelogue, a fascinated encounter with alien faith, and an intimate personal voyage.

    It is a haunting and beautiful book, a rare mix of discovery and loss. In its evocation of landscape and variety of exotic peoples, of mythic and spiritual traditions foreign to our own, it is a spectacular achievement from our greatest living travel writer, an artist of formidable literary gifts, uncanny intuition, and wondrous insight.

    Editor's Note

    A Tibetan adventure…

    The intrepid Thubron embarks on a profound and dangerous trek to a most sacred peak, in search of something other than the dead’s eternal silence.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 1, 2011
    ISBN9781452671147
    Author

    Colin Thubron

    Colin Thubron is an acclaimed travel writer and novelist. His first books were about the Middle East – Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey he described in Among the Russians. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books: Behind the Wall: A Journey through China (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award), The Lost Heart of Asia, In Siberia (Prix Bouvier), Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet. Among other honors, Colin Thubron has received the Ness award of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Memorial Medal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. In 2007 he was made CBE. He was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2010 to 2017, and named an RSL Companion of Literature in 2020.

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    Reviews for To a Mountain in Tibet

    3.5/5

    74 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      In this relatively short (218 page) book, travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron recounts a trek from Nepal to Tibet, where he ultimately circles Mount Kailas, a holy mountain sought by Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Bon pilgrims. His journey is fairly short, and far from epic, but he observes and describes the landscape and people he meets with such care, that the story expands and commands attention. The trip is also as much an internal as an external pilgrimage; Thubron took this trip some months after losing his mother, his last immediate relative. So the story is also the work of a mature author meditating on grief and on the impermanence of all we love, including ourselves. The author's struggle both grounds the information he shares about the historical and cultural meanings of Mt. Kailas -- over and over, stations on the pilgrimage around the mountain are meant to reinforce the pilgrim's awareness of his or her impermanence -- and also creates a tension that drives the book, since Thubron, as a skeptical Westerner, cannot hope for the cosmic salvation experienced by the real pilgrims traveling alongside him. And yet, the journey, at least as he recounts it here, does offer a kind of resolution. Overall, it is a beautiful, respectful, and sober book.
    • 5/5
      Another exquisite travel book by the master
    • 4/5
      This is, on one level, a trek to Mount Kailas, a sacred mountain in Tibet. It is also, although not overtly, a journey into the soul. The author has experienced the loss of his sister, when young, and now both parents, such that he is alone in the world. He undertakes the journey to circumnavigate Mt Kailas, which is scared to Buddhists and Hindus. To do so in not a light undertaking and the trek to just the foot of the mountain is hard going. He describes it all in some detail, and is, at times, unsparing in his descriptions. There is poverty here, but there is also something soul enhancing. Even for a non-believer, he experiences something over and above the travel in this trek. The details of the journey are well described, the history, background, geology and political turmoil all feature. It is when he is meditating on his fellow humanity and the act of memory that he is at his most human.
    • 3/5
      This is a slow, dreamy kind of travel memoir. Colin Thubron reflects on his own life and mortality as he joins pilgrims on the trek to Kailas, an ancient sacred site in Tibet, revered by Buddhists and Hindus, but difficult to reach not only because of it's height and remoteness but also because of the political turmoil in the region between China and Tibet. There is enough traditional travel observation and physical rigor to create movement and tension, but there is also a deeper level of personal reflection on immortality as Thubron reviews his feelings and reactions to the deaths of his father, his sister (in a mountain skiing accident) and his mother. Alone in the world, he contemplates the purpose of pilgrimage and wonders if simply following a certain physical path can have any spiritual significance.
    • 3/5
      I liked it, but it took a while to get through. Normally audio books tend to go a bit faster, but this one dragged for some reason. I'm not sure why, as the narrator was fantastic and it was only 6.5 hours or so. The writing itself was great and I have a hunch that I would have enjoyed it much more had I read it instead of listening to it.
    • 4/5
      The author trekked to Mt Kailas, a holy mountain in western Tibet near the borders with Nepal and India. Pilgrims go there regularly to walk in a circle around the mountain. It is holy to Buddhists, Hindus and others also. It is a difficult route. It starts at high altitude and climbs even higher during the circling. There are numerous religiously significant locations on the mountain, and the author describes all of these from the true believers' perspective. Thurbon trekked with a cook and porter through Nepal to the Tibet border. He lodged with locals along the way. Once he crosses into China, there is a road that he could take by vehicle to the base of the mountain.In addition to describing the sights along his route, he describes the people he meets and their lives as he sees them. He also gives some history of the region and its religions, and some description of Tibetan Buddhism. And, he also relates some of his personal story, his parents both died recently, which motivated him to make this journey.
    • 4/5
      I found this a fascinating journey, all the more inspiring as it was accomplished by a man in his seventies. Despite privations and cold and altitude, most of which he refers to but never with any sense of self-pity, he undertakes a voyage largely on foot up to and around Mount Kailas in Tibet, the sacred mountain of Eastern traditions. In straightforward but poetic language he describes for us the landscape he sees, the peoples he meets, the traditions that imbue every physical feature he negotiates, in such a way that we feel we are there with him.'Pilgrimage' is not quite adequate a word for his trek. He sympathetically outlines Buddhist and Hindu and primitive beliefs without subscribing to them, so it is not a spiritual pilgrimage as such. Nor is it a trip undertaken to find himself, as it were: he has recently lost the last of his immediate family, but it is not a journey to come to terms with personal grief, though he does meditate on the memories of his father, his mother, his sister. Nor does it feel like a mercenary voyage, something to provide material for another of his travel writings or to justify his presidency of the Royal Society of Literature.Rather, I think, this is a journey that he has to do because that is what he does. It seems to be an imperative, this constant travelling in distant lands, imbibing the culture, making temporary connections with locals, becoming one with the physical geography. I picked up the book to read because I wanted to share the experience of encountering one of world's archetypical mountains. I came away having briefly met a very private man who paradoxically happens to share some of his thoughts very publicly through his writing.
    • 2/5
      Ok-ish book. I was expecting more - failed to inspire!
    • 4/5
      I'm going to admit that I was a bit disappointed while I was reading this book. It's mostly my fault as I had thought this was mainly going to be a travel memoir. I was expecting more on the author's adventures as he traveled throughout the country more like something from the Travel Channel. If you're looking for something like that, this is not the book for you. Rather than a fast paced travel adventure, it is a slow paced spiritual hike that you have to savor and find peace instead of just rushing through. That being said, this is a beautifully written book.Thubron explains the beliefs of different religions in the areas he traveled in from tenets of Buddhism to the deities in Hinduism as well as other smaller cultural religions. I really appreciated learning more about how different cultures practice other religions. Even though I don't share the same faith, I am always interested in learning more about what others believe in. I feel that it is important to know about different religions and find out exactly what differences you share and what you have in common.As Thubron continues on this travels, he describes the people and scenery in full detail. I could honestly picture myself on the side of a mountain walking along side of him, glancing at the people walking by and seeing a mountain looming above me. He describes Tibet the way he sees it, the people who are suffering and those who cannot return home. It's a stark contrast from how most Americans are living and there are many who have no idea of what is going on the other side of the world.This is a book that is not to be rushed through. It's a travelogue that is also a spiritual and emotional journey. It's a book where you feel both exhausted and refreshed at the same time. This is probably one of the more unique reads that I've read this year and I'm glad that I kept going with it.