I was travelling with my wife and we had no problem with altitude sickness. The other people in the carriage were Chinese and some were badly affected. A couple from Beijing needed medical attention and were advised to return to a lower altitude and acclimatise before proceeding further.

All of Tibet is at high altitude and getting higher. Deep down, the entire region is part of India, which was once part of Gondwanaland – together with Australia, Antarctica, Africa and South America. When this vast southern continent broke up, the Indian bit headed north at great speed (geologically speaking) and collided with Eurasia.

The undersea part of the Indian tectonic plate ducked down and pushed its way beneath the Eurasian plate which was uplifted to form the highland we call Tibet. If you have difficulty visualising this process then think of a raft being pushed under another raft. The continents are like rafts drifting in a sea of molten magma.

The Indian subcontinent followed behind the undersea part of the Indian plate and made contact with Eurasia about 45 million years ago. It was too light to go under and a bit of a mess ensued. The outcome was the range of mountains we call the Himalayas.

Most of the Tibetan people live in the “lowlands” adjacent to the Brahmaputra valley, which runs along the northern edge of the Himalayas before crossing down into India. The huge sand dunes in the valley date from when the land was below sea level. The Chinese are planting trees to stabilise the dunes. A Tibetan commented to me that, since the country is continually rising, there is not much to worry about. She figured you would need an awful amount of erosion to wash Tibet into the Bay of Bengal. That’s an interesting observation but unlikely to carry weight with the conservationists.

Scarcely any part of Tibet is less than 3000 metres (10,000ft) above sea level. When you talk about “lowland” that’s what you mean. The Tibetans have been in Tibet for 3000 years and have adapted to the high altitude. DNA studies show they carry a gene that enables them to make efficient use of the depleted oxygen in the thin air.

A period of 3000 years corresponds to about 100 generations so it seems this is more than sufficient for the adaptation to occur. People who carry the favourable gene presumably have an advantage over those that don’t. They raise more children and the gene spreads through the population.

The Tibetan’s are a light skinned people with an amazing ability to produce melanin. On a trip into the highlands with my friend Kangi, I met herdsmen with faces tanned black by the high-altitude sun. They were so dark I thought they came from southern India. Later, when we went down to a stream to wash, they displayed skin tones not much different from my European pallor. I guess an ability to take an impressive tan is another favourable adaptation.

The Tibetans were once fierce warriors who terrorised their neighbours with a ferocity that put them in the same league at the Mongol hordes. Then they found Buddha and adopted his teachings. They are now pacifists. Monasteries dot the land and many young men spend time as monks before joining the workforce – somewhat as other young men attend university.

The lake created by the Three Gorges Dam stretches all the way to the city of Congqing in the west and this is a good place to start a cruise down the Yangtze.

Seventy years ago Chongqing was the headquarters of both Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek. The two leaders stopped fighting one another and formed a shaky alliance against the Japanese. The city is far away from the coastal regions conquered by the Japanese and perpetually shrouded in mist. The Japanese bombers could rarely find Chongqing and the city was relatively safe from attack.

The mist gives Chongqing a distinctive feeling. Another distinction is the extraordinary building program launched to house people displaced by the rising waters of the dam. I have never seen so many construction cranes. Apartment blocks have sprouted up like mushrooms on land that was used for farming only a few years ago. The massive project has led to discontent and some people are not shy in expressing their anger to visitors.

Not much is left from the war years but, here and there, you will find the odd reminder. The residence of Song Qing (Sun Yat-Sen’s wife) still stands and so does the residence of General Joseph (Vinegar Joe) Stilwell, who was “lent” by the Americans to the Chinese to help them fight the Japanese.

A museum of the revolution retains the atmosphere of the Mao years. Patriotic workers and peasants stand shoulder to shoulder with soldiers to forge a new destiny for the nation and fight the oppressive forces of the capitalist running dogs. It’s the sort of thing that is getting increasingly hard to find. While in Chongqing, I was told of an old soldier who expressed a desire to be cremated in a Mao suit. The country was once awash with them. His dutiful relatives hunted high and low and eventually hired a tailor to have one specially made.

There are some magnificent World Heritage rock temples at Dazu to the west of the city. These date from the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th Century) which is widely regarded as the golden age of Chinese culture. The statues and rock carvings are in a good state of preservation and mainly Buddhist.

The cruise boats take three or so days to make the journey down the Yangtze to the dam, visiting places of interest on the way. I’m not an enthusiast for cruises but I liked this one.

The boats usually call at Fengdu, which has been renamed “City of Ghosts” by the tourist board. It once stood at the edge of the Yangtze. The lower part is now well below water level and protected by a dam wall. There’s a lot to be seen in the sunken area but the main attractions are higher up. Ancient paths lead to temples. Some are Taoist and the statues inside are scary. A tour guide told us that the Taoists think of hell as a place inhabited by devils who have first claim on your soul. If they judge you unworthy of their company they send you further down the line. That’s an interesting twist on what I was taught at Sunday school.

A shore excursion to Shenlong Village provides a glimpse of what life was once like for the communities along the Yangtze. Until recently, boats were dragged upstream, through the rapids, by gangs of men. Many of these “boatmen” have since migrated to other parts but some remain and they have found employment in the tourist industry. Their wives have souvenir stalls and they give demonstrations of boat dragging. You get in one of their boats and they take you down a narrow gorge to Shenlong. After that, they transfer you to smaller boats and drag you up fast flowing streams.

The people of Shenlong belong to one of China’s minority groups. Their ancestors used to place their dead in caves high up in the cliffs of the Shenlong gorge. Some of the coffins are visible from the boats. We were told that in ancient times the coffins were lowered down on ropes from the top of the cliffs and tended by people climbing down on ropes. Putting flowers on grandma’s grave required a lot of skill in those days.

The three gorges are still impressive but not as impressive as they once were. The dam is one of the wonders of our modern age. One small tip: If you buy a fossil fish from the stalls at Shenlong (or anywhere else), don’t expect it to be real. We had people on our boat comparing purchases and getting upset when they found that their fish was identical to someone else’s fish. The fish were cast from moulds made from real fossils. They weren’t cheated. The price they paid was entirely reasonable for what they got.

The top picture is of one of the gorges. The bottom picture is of the Shenlong boatmen with a boatload of tourists.

The city is growing at a prodigious rate. Take a train to the outskirts and you will pass vast housing developments. People are streaming in from China’s interior to join in the prosperity. Some are coming as “guest workers” and living in dormitories. Many are coming to settle and put down roots.

Old residential areas in the centre are being ripped down to make way for luxury high-rise apartments. We spoke to a young lady whose family home was recently placed under a compulsory purchase order by the Shanghai administration. Like others before them, they would receive a luxury apartment in return. Her parents planned to lease the apartment and live off the rental income.

Their experience contrasted with that of people we met in Chongqing. There the authorities were requisitioning land needed to house people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam. Owners were complaining bitterly that they were being swindled.

There is a lot of history in Shanghai. Among its ancient buildings are the Longhua Pagoda, Jade Buddha Temple and the tomb of Lu Xun. Qiboa Ancient Town and Zhujajiao Water Town are well worth a visit. I’ve heard both criticised as “theme parks”. That may be true but it doesn’t prevent them from being very good theme parks.

The Nanjing Road and Huaihai Road are famous for their fashion houses and restaurants. Walk down the former and you will get to The Bund. The latter leads to the former “French Concession”.

The Bund is where the Europeans and Americans had their business houses. Today the buildings fly the Chinese flag. Interestingly, you do not see the flag flown much in China – just as you do not see many statues of political leaders. The flags in the Bund are a proud reminder that the buildings are now firmly in Chinese hands and the days of foreign subjugation are gone.

The foreign presence in Shanghai was not entirely bad for the city. The foreigners brought prosperity and were opposed to the “Boxers” who were a conservative bunch in league with the oppressive Manchu Dynasty. When the British and French put down the “Boxer Rebellion” and sacked the Manchu imperial pleasure palace, a lot of people in Shanghai were happy with what they did.

The foreigners had “Concessions” of land upon which they built small towns for their nationals. The British and American Concessions have been swallow up by recent development but large parts of the French Concession remain untouched. Its restaurants and bars were favourite venues for young revolutionaries in the early days of communism. Perhaps that’s why it is so well preserved – I don’t know.

I do, however, know something about the attractive, white-barked trees that line the boulevards of the French Concession. They are now found throughout China and widely believed to be French. That’s something of a misconception. The trees are native to North America and were introduced into France two hundred years ago. France is full of them.

A piece of advice: If you buy something in one of the many antiques markets, don’t let them wrap it out of sight. If they do, open the package immediately and make sure you’ve got the correct item. Substituting something inferior is an ancient scam and I felt very silly when I found I had fallen for it.

Nanjing was founded almost three thousand years ago and was formerly China’s capital. The Nanjing Treaty of 1842, following the first of the so-called “opium wars”, granted Hong Kong to Britain. The war was over the “right” of foreigners to sell opium to Chinese nationals. Imagine the Mexicans insisting on their “right” to sell drugs to Americans.

A hundred years later, the city endured the infamous Nanjing Massacre when Imperial Japanese troops slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in an orgy of blood letting that gave the lie to the claim that they were on the Asian mainland to liberate Asians from Western colonialism.

Despite the ravages of history, much that is old and impressive still stands in Nanjing. The city’s ancient defensive wall survives in huge sections. The bricks from which it is made are stamped with the manufacturer’s name. You can see who made the good bricks and who made the bad.

The ancient city gates are particularly impressive. They were built on a massive scale with storage chambers for armaments and barracks for soldiers. The gates are preserved as museums with historical displays and art exhibitions.

Nanjing is renowned for its parks and huge open areas, including the Purple Mountain. That is where you will find many of the city’s most important relics. These include the World Heritage Ming Dynasty tombs and many ancient shrines. The mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen, the father of modern (republican) China, is near the Ming tombs.

The Confucius Temple is a popular destination for residents and visitors alike. The building is situated beside a small river. A picturesque bridge and floating tea houses add to the attraction.

There is a lot to see on foot in Nanjing. I like to get up early and go for a stroll. People are out and about as soon as the sun rises. It’s a time to socialise and do exercises. I never cease to be impressed by the way Chinese mix with one another and with outsiders. Being sociable is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche. You will see young people out jogging. Older people do t’ai chi exercises or a variant of them.

The parks in Nanjing are full of people exercising in the morning. I would like to report that they are in the majority but I would be stretching the truth. Far more are hurrying to work or school. There is a sense of urgency in China these days. Some older people think it’s gone too far. They pour venom on Mao with one breath and yearn for a return to a more relaxed lifestyle with the next.

I met a few old people who idolised Mao but they were in a small minority. Younger people are different. Many say his name with awe. They are proud of the new China and have been brought up to believe that it’s all due to Mao with a bit of help from Sun Yat-Sen. My hero is Deng Xiaoping, who upturned Mao’s crazy system and set China on the road to prosperity. When I mention him to young Chinese I get little response.

Not much survives from Mao Zedong’s reign. The general standard of construction was so bad that most has been knocked down and replaced by something better. There is one notable exception in Nanjing and that is Yangtze River Bridge, built in the 1960s. It received the full publicity treatment of the age and is lavishly decorated with masterpieces of revolutionary art depicting farmers, soldiers and factory workers, clasping Mao’s Little Red Book.

Nanjing is not a popular destination for overseas visitors but is well worth a visit. The city mixes the old with the new. Its shops are world class and its metro system is outstanding.

Old Lhasa is still there. The ancient shrines and houses continue to stand beside the Potola Palace but the scene is changing fast. Modern steel and concrete buildings are sprouting up. I’m reminded of what happened to old Jerusalem.

The Chinese authorities are taking pains to preserve the physical past and the latest technology is being used to record it. Indeed, they are measuring everything with such diligence that some Tibetans fear they are planning to cut it up and cart it back to Beijing where it will be re-erected as a theme park. I discount that fear but take the point about theme parks. I’ve seen what happened to Mont St Michel and other places that preserved their buildings and lost their character.

Lhasa is, of course, best known for the Potola Palace. The old residential quarter is worth a visit and the markets are interesting but the palace is the real gem. It occupies a ridge above the city. There have been buildings and shrines on the site for well over a thousand years. The present complex dates mainly from the 17th century. The palace was the Dalai Lama’s winter residence until his flight to India. It is now a museum.

The upper buildings are red and are religious in much the same way as a cathedral attached to a monastery is religious. They house shrines and tombs of the lamas. The lower, white buildings are where the monks lived and worked in the old days.

Don’t attempt a visit until you are acclimatised. It’s easy to get off a plane and think you can cope with the altitude. The traumas start when you exert yourself. There’s a big climb between the ticket booth at the entry to the palace and the Dalai Lama’s suite at the top.

When we were there, a Tibetan construction crew was making repairs to one of the terraces. It looked to me like a communal effort. No modern machinery was used. There were as many women as men and everyone wore traditional dress. Baskets of mortar were carried up wooden ladders. Girls with tea earns followed behind. Older women swept back and forth in line, kneading the mortar with their feet – all the time singing. It was as if a party was going on and building things was one of the games. I have the impression it goes on everyday. At any rate, some friends were there six months later and saw the same thing.

The upper palace is where it gets interesting. The building clings to the rock face and burrows into it. Giant statues stand in chambers lit by lamps of burning yak butter. You wonder how the building can withstand the colossal weight of the statues then realise they are set into solid rock and you are inside a cave. Rancid smoke drifts amongst the shrines. It is not difficult to feel yourself transported back to an age when the monks still worshipped there.

You climb higher and leave the gloom. Daylight streams into brightly painted rooms and illuminates images of saints and demons. They stare down at you from nooks and crannies and stand in alcoves. You press on and reach the Dalai Lama’s private chamber on the highest floor of the palace.

I was reminded of a visit, many years earlier, to the Pope’s summer palace at Castel Gandolfo. His private quarters were not on the top floor. That honour went to the Jesuit astronomers who had a telescope on the roof. I know because I was an astronomer in those days and was there to talk to them. My only recollection of the meeting is of a sheet of paper blowing off a window ledge. It looped the loop before our eyes and entered the window below – much to the dismay of the Jesuits. A short while later a man in clerical dress brought it back saying His Holiness had recognised the writing as astronomical. Please be more careful in future.

The Dalai Lama was not in residence when I entered his chamber and there was no risk of disturbing him. His Holiness had gone to live in India and his room was now open to tourists like myself. I spent some time examining the humble furnishings. There was certainly no sign of extravagance. I recalled that he likes to refer to himself as a humble monk.

In some respects, the Dalai Lama’s position is like that of a hereditary monarch. He wasn’t elected to the top job. He was chosen at a very early age and raised by monks in a monastery. Unlike his piers in the Christian and Islamic churches he had no competition and no choice. He got the job and has to do his best in a very difficult position.

After I visited the palace I went to the nearby Jokhang Temple. It dates from the 7th century and houses statues of the Buddha, including the revered Jowo Sakyamuni Buddha. Pilgrims flock there from all over Tibet to perform the ritual journey of walking round the temple. I watched them for some time and recalled that my friend Kangri’s mother had expressed a desire to make the pilgrimage to Lhasa before she died. Despite the modern buildings and tourist cameras, Lhasa remains one of the holiest places on Earth.

We have all seen Chinese paintings of misty mountains with trees and temples hanging in space. It is a very old style and I used to think of it as pure fantasy. Then I went to China and was surprised to discover how close it comes to real life.

My plane descended towards Shanghai and suddenly the clouds looked very Chinese. They were the puffy sort you see in paintings. All that was lacking was a few mountains and the odd dragon.

I got a further surprise when we visited the Huang Shan Mountains. They are perpetually bathed in mist. It swirls about granite pinnacles and forms seas in deep valleys. You rarely get more than a glimpse of anything before the mist returns. Trees cling to rocks and shrines poke up on ledges. They are there one moment and gone the next.

I tried to photograph the scene and was always frustrated. Like the rainforest, the mountain is all around you. Individual elements are impressive because you know they are there. Getting them together to form a picture requires skill. The artists of antiquity developed a style that captures the feeling of the mountains. Photographers rarely achieve the same result without a lot of photoshopping (mucking around with the digital image).

Today, you can get on a train in Shanghai and be at the foot of the Huang Shan in a few hours. Cable cars speed you to the top. It was very different when I first went there twenty years ago. You had to trudge up a pilgrim path. The mountain is now equipped with tourist hotels. Twenty years ago, there was just one place to stay unless you found a monk or nun who was prepared to put you up at there place.

Going back was a bit of a disappointment but don’t let me put you off. The Huang Shan are one of the great natural wonders of the world. You can put up with the crowds and the commercialisation. The scenery makes the whole thing worthwhile.

I returned last year with my wife. We took the precaution of avoiding Chinese public holidays but forgot about Korean holidays. The place was overrun with South Koreans. Over two thousand had descended on the cable car station at the foot of the mountain. To add to the problem, the Chinese bureaucracy was insisting on seeing everyone’s passport. The excuse was security and the alleged danger was suicide bombers. God/Buddha/Confucius knows how seeing a passport will stop people blowing themselves up. We would have waited hours if a Chinese tour guide had not taken pity on us. He included our passports with those of his (overseas) party and we went up with them.

Once on top you have to walk. That means taking a small bag if you are staying at one of the hotels. Your other luggage can be left below in a locker. The walk to the hotels is long and if you can’t manage it you should stay at the bottom. There is a lot of climbing and descending but the going is easy. The paths are worthy of an emperor. No expense was spared creating steps and walkways from blocks of granite.

If you don’t want to carry your bag you can use the services of one of the many porters. These are immensely fit people of all ages who carry stuff around on poles slung across their shoulders. I was told that much of what they do could be done by vehicles but that would put an end to their jobs. The official policy is to provide work for the locals and not displace them by machines.

If you like a bit of solitude in beautiful places then stay on the mountain for at least one night. The crowds melt away towards evening and it’s quite peaceful after the last cable car has gone back down. It stays that way until the first cable car arrives the next morning. Then the pressure builds up as more and more people are disgorged.

I wrote that in a press release thirty years ago and the story took wings. The university achieved instant fame and I received newspaper clippings from all round the world, testifying to its success.

When I say “fame” I mean “fame” not “notoriety”.

The students and their professors had good reason to be proud. For the first time ever, the amazing phenomenon of mass coral spawning had been identified and subjected to scientific investigation.

Corals are sedentary creatures, confined to coralline structures, so getting together for sexual reproduction is out of the question. Instead of copulating, the small animals produce vast amounts of eggs and sperm and cast them to the currents. There’s so much of the stuff that chance fertilisation is bound to occur. The slicks of coral spawn are so big they can be seen from space.

The slicks had been observed by fishermen but had not been subjected to scientific investigation. That was thirty years ago and the first marine science research centres had only recently been established in northern Australia. Very little tropical marine science had been done and there was still an immense amount of basic information to be gathered. The general (and mistaken) view was that the slicks were algal blooms.

The students investigated the slicks and discovered the amazing phenomenon of mass coral spawning. What’s more, it was the first time the phenomenon had been identified anywhere on Earth – which tells you a lot about the state of tropical marine science in those days.

Why hadn’t coral spawning been observed in the Caribbean? That was puzzling to say the least. The corals must spawn there. America has lots of marine scientists. Why hadn’t they seen it?

The mystery was solved when the corals spawned the following year. It then became apparent that they synchronise their sexual activity using the phases of the moon as a clock. The tiny animals are so diligent in their timekeeping that they hit off within a couple of days of one another – and that goes for all species … it truly is one huge sex orgy.

The orgies occur but once a year, towards midsummer, and are over within a few days. If you are not around to see what’s going on, you miss out. In the Northern Hemisphere, coral spawning occurs during university term-time. The American marine scientists were in class teaching – so they missed out.

By doing it at the same time, the corals produce such a vast quantity of spawn that predatory fish can’t possibly devour the lot. Enough of their offspring survive to settle down and form new colonies.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches for over 1500 km (1000 miles) along the tropical Queensland coast, from Rockhampton in the south to the tip of Cape York Peninsular in the far north. It is not continuous, as the name suggests, but is made up of hundreds of individual reefs. Some are tens of kilometres across. Others are much smaller.

The reefs are living. They are built by coral animals that secrete hard shells about their soft bodies. The small creatures crowd together to form colonies and it is these that we think of when we talk about “coral”. Break a piece of dead coral and you will see the small tubes where the coral animals once lived.

The corals come in a variety of shapes and colours and are home to a huge variety of iridescent fish, giant clams, conga eels, starfish, turtles, giant manta rays and other creatures … a veritable wonderland.

You can visit the Reef as a scuba diver, snorkeller or someone who is happy to sit in a glass-bottom boat. The most southerly point is Great Keppel Island near Rockhampton. As you go northward, you will find boats taking people out from McKay, Airlie Beach, Townsville, Mission Beach, Cairns, Port Douglas and other places.

Where is the best point to see the Reef?

As a divemaster, I was often asked that question. People expected me to say Cairns or some other top tourist spot. The answer is not that simple since it depends on what you want to see.

If you are vaguely interested in the Reef and don’t want to spend a lot of time or money then I would recommend a trip to one of the inshore reefs or inshore islands such as Great Keppel or Green Island (off Cairns). You won’t see the Reef at its most spectacular and the water will not be as clear as further out to sea. Nevertheless, you will experience some nice coral. I rank Keppel and Green Island as good value for money.

Water clarity is important. The sea is muddy inshore and crystal clear further out. This is glaringly apparent if you fly along the coast and take a look downwards. The transition from murky to acceptable varies with the weather. In my experience, you are fairly safe if you go at least 20 nautical miles (40km) offshore.

Suppose you are a snorkeller and want to get into nice clear water. In your place, I would ask two things of the tourist boats competing for my money. Firstly, I would want to know how far out to sea they were going to take me. Some of the reefs off Cairns and Airlie Beach are too close inshore for clear water, by my reckoning. Secondly, I would want to know about safety provisions. There have been horrific tales of poor swimmers left to their own devices. A good operator will provide buoyancy jackets and put out lines to prevent swimmers from being swept away by the currents.

As a diver, my most memorable experiences have been on reefs at the far outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef at the continental drop-off. To reach them you need to go on an extended tour of several days. Looking at a map of Australia, it is easy to underestimate distance. The outer edge of the Reef is about 150 km (100 miles) offshore in many places. An extended tour, calling at reefs on the way, would cover at least three times that distance.

I’ve made repeat trips to memorable places only to be disappointed. The Reef is a living thing. It’s like a garden. Some parts are spectacular one year and dull the next. By the same token, parts that have been degraded, by cyclonic storms, starfish infestations or some other cause, can come good again.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is responsible for the protection of the Reef, which has World Heritage status. The Authority’s headquarters are in Townsville where it operates an impressive visitors centre featuring a large aquarium and other displays.

I’ve met a few memorable people in my life and one was a Tibetan guy who organised the logistics for our climbing trip in the Himalayas. I injured my foot early in the proceedings and spent a lot of time with him while the rest of my party was away in the mountains. We knew him as Kangri. His parents called him by a different sounding name.

Kangri’s family lived a nomadic life, grazing yaks in the highland pastures of northern Yunnan, near the Tibetan border. It’s a tough way to make a living and he had some remarkable stories to tell.

One was about a horrendous incident when he was at toddler. A lion dog took his head into its mouth. His scalp was ripped open. His mother fainted and his uncle stitched him back together again. Kangri pulled back his hair as he told the story and showed us the ugly scar that remained from the ordeal.

The Tibetan lion dogs get their name from the main of long hair on their huge heads. His family kept them to guard their herds from wolves. They lost calves to the wolves and had to be on guard all the time. As a teenager, Kangri spent long hours with his father, lying in ambush, waiting for wolf packs to come within range. They had telescopic sights on their rifles but the wolves were cunning and very difficult to shoot.

When he was thirteen, Kangri went to a boarding school run by Buddhist monks. There, he learnt about strange people who lived in the west. They had yellow hair and blue eyes and didn’t like the Chinese. The blue-eyed people spoke English and Kangri decided he was going to learn English.

The nearest place to do that was India. The Dalai Lama had established a college in the foothills of the Himalayas and Kangri resolved to go there. At the age of nineteen, he set off with two friends. Leaving Tibet was strictly forbidden and they had to travel at night. The journey took over two months. Towards the end, they exhausted their money supply and were forced to beg.

Frontier guards patrolled the main routes. He and his friends had to use high passes to escape detection. In many places the track was no more than a crumbling ledge, cut into a cliff face centuries before. They got frostbite and couldn’t feel the rocks cutting into their legs as they hugged the cliff in the dark. Kangri pulled up his trouser leg and showed us the scars he had accumulated on the journey.

The young men eventually reached India and enrolled in the Dalai Lama’s college. Kangri learnt English and could have emigrated to America but felt homesick. He made enquiries and found that the Chinese authorities would let him back. In time he obtained a licence for tourist activities.

Kangri speaks Tibetan, Mandarin and excellent English. While my people were away climbing he decided to visit his family. He invited me along and we set off in his 4WD vehicle. It was an awesome trip. Kangri changed into Tibetan clothes and I put on my climbing gear to stay warm. We carried extra fuel and a box of spares.

Finding his folks required patience. Kangri talked to people on route and followed their leads. It took four days and we finally found them encamped in a shallow valley. A large herd of yaks was grazing on the surrounding hillsides. The family had ponies and two large vehicles. Kangri’s brother was there with his wife and children. He spoke Tibetan and no other language.

The two brothers had led very different lives. Kangri was a man of the world and his brother was a herdsman whose big ambition was to visit Lhahsa. Kangri’s mother asked me if I could find a nice girl for her son. Kangri was clearly embarrassed by the question but undertook the translation.

He was in his late twenties and clearly wanted a “nice girl”. His problem was to find a Tibetan girl who shared his outlook on life. There were some “nice” farm girls but their view of the world was far too restricted. Then there were the university girls. He’d introduced me to some and made it clear that he didn’t like them. I suspect that when he finds the lady of his dreams, she will be a way-out character (probably a Westerner) looking for a way-out man like himself.