Harrer’s experience in Tibet definitely creates a unique adventure story. It is educational, mellow, shows friendship, and is a primary historical source as well. I have always wanted to know more about high mountain culture and I am glad I had the chance to learn a little through Harrer’s eyes. The other books we have read in class have focused so much on the expedition itself and little on the cultural experiences they had. Of course none of them could compare to Harrer’s experience. What we have read about Himalayan culture have only been encounters and when expeditions were passing through a village or using them as employees. I cannot think of any part in the book where Harrer came across even slightly racist or talking down on the people. In many of the books we have read up to this point, they have in more ways created a negative or savage image of native people than positive images. From the beginning to the end of this book, Harrer’s writing is so positive and intriguing, and does not seem to change when he starts living in Lhasa. If anything his tone becomes more positive and mellow.

This was a good book to get the eastern/western perspective on mountains too. When Harrer sees Mount Kailas he writes how the Tibetans prayed to the mountain as this is the home of their gods. I got the sense that Harrer’s desire of climbing mountains shifted after he spent some time in Lhasa. He wrote at one point something along the lines of binging so close yet far to climbing one of the mountains near the village. Maybe it was because they did not have the gear, but I feel like that would not have stopped them. All the events in the beginning of the book I saw as what he was trying to get away from in everyday life when he went climbing. He did not really seem too frustrated when he ended up back in a camp, he just wanted to escape again. It was like a temporary time-out from his expeditions. In the last few pages of the book when he is back in Europe he also writes, “It took me a long time to acclimatize myself to all the bustle and paraphernalia of civilization” (323). I felt like he did not need to go climbing when he was living in Lhasa, maybe because he felt like he did not need to. Harrer did say he felt at home there; I am sure he felt at home when he was climbing too. Harrer wrote that the news from Europe only strengthened their desire to remain and make Lhasa a permanent home; he probably got the same feelings in the mountains as he did in Lhasa.

Harrer wrote he no longer felt unsatisfied or incomplete when he starting meeting regularly with the Dali Lama. It seemed that the Dali Lama saw Herrer as a way to share Tibetan culture with Europe. Their seemed to be a great relationship between Aufschnaiter, Harrer, and the Tibetans as well. Harrer or Aufschnaiter did not look at the Tibetans as people out of the ordinary or people to take advantage of in any way, but a culture they have always wanted to experience. Harrer wrote how he has always envied the Tibetans for their simple faith. He was a seeker for that, and eventually became exactly that.