Travels With My Uncle

One hundred years ago, Rupert Wilmot, an officer in the British Army, trekked all over the high peaks of Kashmir and Ladakh, in the far north of India. In the 2000s, his nephew, Martin Bates, studied the photos Rupert took and set off to follow his trail, but under very different circumstances as Rupert was on foot, while Martin travelled by jeep. Martin's destination is the inauguration of a new sacred stupa in a Buddhist monastery. Along the way he makes friends with some extraordinary people and is shown much kindness. Among astonishing Himalayan mountains, he finds he has to wrestle with inner demons that go back to his childhood. But the exhilarating journey and the company of wise people help to pacify them. Despite having since become blind, Martin has turned his, and Rupert's, diary and notes into a book that is liberally illustrated with photographs from the 1920s and the 2000s.