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WHERE THE INDUS IS YOUNG: A WINTER IN BALTISTAN PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Dervla Murphy | 272 pages | 15 Apr 2012 | Eland Publishing Ltd | 9781906011666 | English | London, United Kingdom Where the Indus Is Young: Walking to Baltistan - Dervla Murphy - Google книги Paperback , pages. Published February 20th by Flamingo first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Where the Indus is Young , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about Where the Indus is Young. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Where the Indus is Young. Who travels better than Dervla Murphy? In the accomplished Irish travel writer compiled an extensive packing list an appendix to this book , bought tickets, gathered up her young daughter Rachel, and set out upon an extended trek to Baltistan in mountainous northern Pakistan. Accompanied by a sure-footed pony named Hallam, the duo went through wintry adventures on a shoestring that were challenging occasionally hair-raising , culturally broadening, and generally enthralling. This boo Who travels better than Dervla Murphy? This book, Where the Indus is Young , is the result of Murphy's travel diary, and it's one of the most engrossing travel accounts I've ever read. Murphy's challenges were numerous, but they focused just as much on people than mountaineering, perhaps more so. The author has a real gift for encompassing the whole of the travel experience, be it scenery, local culture, food, or just getting on with the locals. Even Hallam the pony takes on a personality all his own. Usually my reviews include one quotation from the subject book to give a feel for the material. But Murphy's book is so wide-ranging and so well-written that just this once, I'm going to add three quotations: from the book: Balti is a language without a script, nor do the people have many reliable oral traditions about their own past. In Thowar our Head Constable friend assured me that "before the conversion to Islam, 1, years ago [sic], all Baltis were Hindus or Sikhs. Then the Tibetan script would have been used, at least by the lamas and probably by all educated lay-folk. Now I am in such hellish agony that I cannot write any more. The great gaunt peaks appear and disappear through drifting cloud, while the nearer crags and precipices and gullies and cliffs and ravines all have a new sort of mysterious, softened beauty. Apr 29, Vanya rated it really liked it. View 1 comment. Apr 08, Sudipto Roy rated it it was amazing. I read her Full Tilt in one go. That was way back in when there was no distraction of the internet or mobile phone and I had all the time in the world to read peacefully in a small Himalayan kingdom called Bhutan in the light of a kerosene lamp. I have not read a more fascinating adventure travel story. But this is not about Full Tilt. This is about Where the Indus is Young not so young if you have been to Ladakh - a very remote part in the Pakistan side of Kashmir where she travels with I read her Full Tilt in one go. This is about Where the Indus is Young not so young if you have been to Ladakh - a very remote part in the Pakistan side of Kashmir where she travels with her six year old daughter. Apart from her spirit of adventure, her sense of ethics and human values stand out all packed in a wonderfully humorous way. I will never get a chance to visit these places that she describes, which is sad. And they probably don't exist any more as they did during her travel in the early 70s. But this is not a tourist brochure. It is a travelogue. It is about what she saw, what she heard, what she understood and what she felt. It's brilliant. However, it is also a vivid description of the abject poverty of the people, their wretchedness, poor health and hygiene. Except their good natured acceptance of their fate, dictated largely by their geography, politics and religion, and their intention to be good hospitable hosts there is nothing to feel good about the people of Baltistan as Murphy saw it. She repeatedly says she wants to come back as she is in love with the place. It is not clear why. Is it just the natural beauty of the place? I do not know. Rachel is a sweety. She must be a little younger than me. I wonder if she became an adventurer too later in her life. Oct 24, Pam Boardman rated it really liked it. An excellent book. A friend lent me this book, because I had just come back from trekking in Kashmir in an area near to the area in the book. The description of her journey was fascinating. It was interesting to see how different the area was when she was there. She was very determined to visit this area in winter and for a long period of time. I didn't think it was a good idea to take her 6 year old daughter with her. Also she didn't take much food with her, and therefore had to depend on the An excellent book. Also she didn't take much food with her, and therefore had to depend on the locals. These people were poor. Jun 23, Jodie rated it really liked it. Beautifully written. I would love to meet Dervla - she is so pragmatic in her adventures and shows such an amazing strength of character in the ways she manages to overcome any difficulties with such verve. What an inspiring lady! A beautifully described book, but sometimes overly long and sometimes the narrator was distinctly unlikeable due to the treatment of her own child. I also went back and forth on her description of the various peoples of the ranges - sometimes very flatteringly and sometimes almost sub-human. Oct 20, K So rated it it was amazing. Looking back this book left an imprint in my mind. I think about the author and her daughter often if I see mention of apricots, potty training, books in backpacks and the mountains and Kyrgyzstan. I plan to read this book again if I find another copy. Jan 04, Fiona Ogg added it. It's a miracle her daughter survived! Interesting but you wouldn't catch me doing that! Jul 05, Ahsan Abbas Ansari rated it it was amazing. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. And the staff — in contrast to all those svelte, impeccably-trained Indians at India House — were so amiably clueless that they had me trotting to and fro from building to building for half an hour before I found the man I wanted. Yet that morning I was conscious of a wonderful feeling of relaxation, of at homeness — an absence of barriers. It is perilous to venture into comparisons between India and Pakistan but sometimes one has to risk offending both sides, for the sake of readers totally unfamiliar with the subcontinent. Also, most ordnance factories and army schools, apart from the famous staff college at Quetta, were in India. Yet the rougher the going became, during those early years, the more guts the Pakistanis showed, though they lacked that outside support they had somewhat naively expected. India, being far more influential, got proportionately more consideration from the Big Powers. All this naturally engenders sympathy for Pakistan. Yet our ease of communication with Pakistanis probably owes most to the obvious affinities between Christianity and Islam, though nowadays this religious factor is two-edged. Theocracies are unfashionable in the West and Pakistan initially alienated many foreigners by presenting herself as an Islamic Republic. This meant not merely that all her people were Muslim i. The Sharia is a formidable collection of complex laws devised by theologians more than a thousand years ago and ever since guarded against change by the Ulema , an even less flexible institution than the Vatican. Certainly the visitor is aware of no stifling conservative theocratic presence in Pakistan, which feels considerably less religion-conscious than the officially secular Republic of India. And having fairly recently visited a number of old-established Christian institutions, in both India and Pakistan, I can vouch for it that since Christian missionaries have had a much smoother ride in Pakistan than in India. I can also vouch for the fact that even the most powerful Pakistani mullahs have far less influence than the average Irish Catholic bishop. While the idea of Pakistan was developing in the minds of some of these reformers, the mullahs opposed it almost unanimously — and not just because its advocates were unorthodox. Nationalism frustrates the Islamic ideal of a world in which all men are brothers, regardless of race, colour, class or occupation. Baltistan covers an area of 10, square miles and was ruled from about by the Maharaja of Kashmir; therefore it is now part of the Disputed Territory between Pakistan and India. The Indians, I knew, allowed no foreigners anywhere near their Himalayan frontier and why should the Pakistanis be any more accommodating? If you hold a valid Irish passport you may travel anywhere you like in Pakistan for as long as you like. Every traveller is welcome to every part of Pakistan. Otherwise there are no restrictions.

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