In a world (we inhabit) where travel restrictions have eased
immensely and where technology enables us to
A young and curious 23 year-old lad, a student of Nanjing University,
Vikram, tears away quite by chance and choice from the suffocating mold of his
3 week-long “organized” tour group and ventures into an impossibly difficult
part of the world.
His journey commences at the brazenly hot military outpost
town of Turfan, in extreme North-Western desert province of Xinjiang. Over the
next 3 weeks, he weaves a beautiful tapestry of people, places and experiences
he comes across; memories that are sure to live with him for a lifetime.
He visits the most fascinating of places – the hot oasis
town of Turfan, the historical Xian and the erstwhile capital of China, the
ubiquitous Sun-Yat-Sen Parks he confronts in each town wherever he visits,
Liuyuan – the treeless, dusty rail junction and transport yard that is
incidentally also the gateway to Tibet, nondescript remote towns of Dunhuang
and Nanhu, the wilderness outpost of Germu, the exotic wild-lands of Tibet, the
imposing Potala and Norbulingka palaces at Lhasa and finally, an almost
adventurous crossing over into Nepal across the mightily swollen Dudhkosi
river.
Vikram makes astute observations everywhere he goes.
Religion, cultures, historical references, politics, local mindsets, ethnography
– you name it and he has it. One wonders how much he reads up about people and
places before he actually visits.
To call it a travelogue, doesn’t quite do justice to the
book. It is nothing short of a memoir – of one’s experiences while traveling
through a remote land.
A quintessential book to read for any intrepid traveller.
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