FOR sheer vividness, nobody will probably ever be able to beat Paul Theroux's account of a journey to Tibet in his Chinese travel book Riding The Iron Rooster.
Travel books, though, are often as much fiction as fact - and if you're planning a journey of your own to the Roof of the World, what you need is a sensible, practical, detailed guide that will tell you how to get there and how to get around.
You could do a lot worse than Mapping the Tibetan World, which bills itself as a 'budget guide to the Tibetan cultural region' and sports 280 detailed maps of the kind rarely found in travel guides that will be an irresistible invitation to roam for anyone with a taste for trekking. Where else, for example, could you find this sort of detail (from a map of the Road to Tsang-gar Gompa on page 207): "Fierce dog left loose at this house. Advisable to take the northern course."
The 400-page book provides everything from hotel tariffs to tour and trekking costs and permit and visa charges, as well as information about the 'gateway cities' to Tibet: New Delhi, Calcutta, Chengdu, Kunming, Kathmandu and Pokhara.
Updated: 08:47 Wednesday, May 22, 2002
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