Events in Tibet from the 1940s through the 1970s culminated in the obliteration of the traditional Tibetan pastoral society which was based around Lamasery, a sensibly sustainable agriculture, and the ancient calendar. Two western-most provinces of old Tibet, Ladakh and Zanskar, having been annexed by India, offered the final glimpse of this nearly extinct traditional Tibetan way of life, particularly the remote and inaccessible former Kingdom of Zanskar. Grasping the opportunity, Mark Boyden set out from Ireland in the Spring of 1981 to explore this Kingdom and record these old traditions before they were inexorably eroded by modernity. Traveling with a horse ('Himself') and his friend Paddy, Mark Boyden was one of the first Westerners to visit this closed kingdom. In Travels in Zanskar, he has written a delightful travelogue of this remarkable expedition - the challenges of the landscape, the encounters with a succession of characters, and the details of life in Zanskar, in what Dervla Murphy calls in her Foreward, "a travel book in the classic tradition."
Travels in Zanskar: A Journey to a Closed Kingdom, Mark Boyden, The Liffey Press Ltd, Paperback, 182 pp, $31.95
In his youth Mark Boyden trekked into the Sierra Nevadas, the Canadian and American Rockies, the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Alps and the Himalayas. He is now a noted Ecologist and Environmental Educator, creator of the StreamScapes Aquatic Education Programme. He lives in Bantry, County Cork.
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