The landscape of western Tibet has a kind of grandiose monotony, in the midst of which vistas of extraordinary splendor suddenly open up – like that of Mount Kailash, seen from the top of a 15,000 feet high pass, with the vast blue expanse of Lake Manasarovar at its feet. Kailash, the ‘Silver Mountain’, known to the Tibetans as ‘the White Mountain of the Snows’, or Kangkar Tise, is one of the holiest places in the East, revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike. Pilgrimages to Mount Kailash have been going on for centuries. As Lama Govinda writes in The Way of the White Clouds, ‘some mountains are just mountains, but others have a personality and thereby the power to influence men. The greatest of all, since the beginning of time, was and remains Mount Kailash.’ 1998.