The rivers of the Mandala

Travellers today want their experiences imaginatively recreated in a way that relates to 21st-century life back home: a noisy, raucous, digitally influenced, comic-book, mixed-media life of intense experiences thrown together without homage to tradition. In this captivating book, set to start a new genre, two young Frenchmen set out to explore Mount Kailash, the sacred mountain in Tibet venerated by Buddhists who look upon it as a mandala, a design representing the different stages that lead towards Enlightenment. Drawings in pencil, charcoal or ink, photographs of awesome landscapes and humorous incidents alike, computer-created collages - all combine to give a vivid testimony to each moment of an amazing journey. Following the four great rivers, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, Indus an Karnali, that originate around Mount Kailash, with many detours of the body (and the mind) into other countries and cultures, the authors enthuse - and inform - everyone.