Tibetan Transit

No country has ever so engaged the reader's imagination as Tibet. Described as barren and primitive by early travellers, Tibet's image changed to one of a stunnignly beautiful landscape that gave rise to one of the most intriguing civilisations on earth. Every traveller's conceived image of Tibet clashes with the reality. TIBETAN TRANSIT is a travelogue that weaves the rich veins of Tibetan history, spirituality and legend with the contemporary struggle of a culture under seige. Lolo Houbein, on her travels to Tibet witnesses landslides, an uprising over the disputed succession of the Panchen Lama, martial law and celebrations of the Dalai Lama's birthday. She meets villagers, farmers, nuns, monks, beggars and undertakers and discovers a land richer in beauty and spiritual wealth than she ever expected. This depite the decades that had passed since the Chinese invaded Tibet and cut it in three. Since then the dominance of a foreign ideology over Tibetan culture and Buddhist religion has wrought irreparable changes. Tibet has become the worlds's litmus test as to who or what makes a nation in the new millennium.