Aide Memoire: Author and friend travel in Nepal with a yak but not in Tibet. pub. 1988. Slow but pleasant reading. Tibet opening up to Chinese influence at that time. ( )

This is quite a quirky travel book, obviously centred around Nepal and Tibet (but I didn't need to tell you that did I). It flows along quite quickly with occasional glimpses of well-written detail. It does seem to lack a distinctive point other than to tell of their journey. The yaks form a part of the story but in fact an unsatisfying part as our unheroic hero is unable to travel on them and only briefly with them. His seemingly rather posh companion seems to change name regularly through the first half of the book from Phillipa to Caroline and back again. Overall it's not a bad read and does contain an underlying vein of humour. ( )

To the Navel of the World is an entertaining travelogue of an Irishman and his companion in Nepal and Tibet.

Somerville-Large takes the reader with him as he travels around the two Himalayan nations, in spite of officials' best efforts to stop them with Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The author and his photographer companion, Caroline, walk, drive and even ride a couple of yaks, aptly named Mucker and Sod.

The book moves quicker than the two yaks, with a large dose of humour, which is needed when confronting an army of unimaginative officials. Nepal and Tibet are two countries which have always fascinated me, with cultures so different from my own. Somerville-Large has written a book which brings us a little closer to understanding both countries, both amusing and informative. ( )