Four Years In Tibet

I have just completed Ahmad Shah´s “Travel Classic who allegedly spent 4 years in Tibet at the end of the nineteenth century. Ahmad was a British citizen of Indian parents. He is at first drawn to Ladakh to verify a well documented story from a Russian traveller Natovitch who claimed that there were parchments being kept at Hermis monastery that documents the life of Jesus between his 12th and 30th years – information not accessible in the New Testament. As he is travelling through Kashmir he learns that his wife is very sick, but as she is with other family members, she´ll be all right. Her subsequent death is also not enough to divert his plans and he sends a missive telling his family to put his daughter in a boarding school. Having investigated the matter for himself and found no supporting evidence, he seems thorough in his derision of Natovitch´s claims and generally very scathing.

At a time when Tibet was impenetrable to foreigners, Mr Shah claims to have disguised himself as a Tibetan peasant, although he does not write about this – apparently I could have had photographic evidence at his lecture to the Oxford Natural History Society. He does write in-depth details about his observations of Tibetans including birth, marriage and death ceremonies, sports, festivities and religion. He describes them as ugly in appearance, dirty and smelly with a cowardly disposition although they have a good sense of humour. He was particularly amused by their greeting of sticking their tongues out – one of my personal favourites too.