From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet
by Vikram Seth
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Read in May, 2005
Vikram Seth's “From Heaven Lake: travels in Sinkiang and Tibet” is an unusual travel book. Steering clear of all Lonely Planet Guides and regular travel routes, Seth manages to sketch a picture of China, Tibet, and Nepal from a hungry (quite literally) student traveller’s perspective. He was at that time a student at the Nanjing University. Taking time and money off from the Standford University, Seth stays in China for 2 years. When the time comes for him to return home, he decides on a m...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
People travelling to Xinjiang/Tibet
This is the first in the long list of travel accounts that I want to read before heading off on my trip. I enjoyed Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy' and fully expected to enjoy this account of his travels through Xinjiang and Tibet in the early 1980s. His account was fairly dry in places but it was interspersed with delightful humour and interesting insights. I especially enjoyed Seth's description of the people he met and the warmth and hospitality he received on his journey. He does spend an inor...more
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Read in July, 2007
Easy reading about a difficult trip. In 1981, Vikram Seth (who later would write "A Suitable Boy" left Nanking University to travel through Tibet back to his family in India. Bad route and floods made for a challenging trip - but he also grew to know the truckdrivers who he traveled with. The only "bad" part of the book was that after reading it, I started feeling very restless. I've never been to China or along the silk road or Tibet; there are too many places to explore...more
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Read in May, 2007
Currently resting in New Delhi after having just retraced most of Seth's route from Qinghai to Tibet to Nepal to India. What an extraordinary young man he must have been, to have studied Mandarin in Nanjing in his 20s. The roads in Tibet, as you can imagine, are no longer in the state they were when Seth made his adventurous foray. But, as I have come to learn from his writing, life's dramas continue to play out. I love the fact that he thinks it is important to mention the times when he eats ...more
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Read in April, 2007
A good read for someone like me who does not know a lot of Chinese history and about its culture. There are some excellent descriptions of places and keen observations of Chinese and Tibetan peoples. Since, the books comes from the author's diary at times there are differences in how much detail he describes things. Overall though its a great achievement for the author to have done this 25 years ago. I wonder how much of what he mentions in the book is changed now..
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...an anchronistic account I would say,the sights and sounds of China have definitely changed. But I am not sure the same can be said about Tibet...nevertheless it beautifully captures both the people and the landscape.
A compelling account and powerful yet simple prose. How many writers can boast of this?
A compelling account and powerful yet simple prose. How many writers can boast of this?
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a great travel memoir about hitchhiking from china to india via tibet. vikram seth is kind of amazing. if i remember right he got his start as an economist and became a poet and a novelist. he wrote this book somewhere between economist and poet, and that's pretty much how it reads.
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Jennifer by:
Melinda
I love Seth's A Suitable Boy and could read it over and over. But this book--about his travelling home to India after studying in Nanjing--is just so-so. However, reading about early 1980s China is interesting--things have loosened up a lot since then (although maybe not in Tibet!)
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Read in January, 2008
Made me want to go on a long and aimless roadtrip, get in trouble with the police, and make strange friends. Either that, or I wanted to go make friends with Vikram Seth and bring him a big pot of vegetarian spaghetti or something. He's great on an aesthetic level, too.
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
people who like travel, china
A charming travel journal. This looks to be the first book by an author whose novels I've enjoyed quite a bit. In 1983, I suspect the journey he took would qualify as extreme travel - today, not so much. Its a fine book and I enjoyed it.
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Read in January, 2006
A little dated to be sure, but a pretty good read and look at the difficulties of traveling in China and dealing with its massive bureaucracy.
He also has a difficult time traveling in Tibet, with flooded roads, or no roads at all.
He also has a difficult time traveling in Tibet, with flooded roads, or no roads at all.
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He hiked, by himself, through Tibet, without equipment. Just as if he was strolling. Very John Muir.
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Read in January, 2007
This book was interesting - it was a gift from a dear friend before my trip to India and Nepal.
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Read in July, 2000
Still one of the best travel books ever written, from the writer of A Suitable Boy!!!
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