No Passport To Tibet by Frederick Bailey (1957) Hardcover

At the beginning of this century geographers and explorers debated hotly whether the river known as the Tsangpo in Tibet and the Brahmaputra in India concealed in its descent of over 8,000 feet to the plains of Assam a waterfall as high and splendid as Niagara. dian explorer Kintup re- ported falls 150 feet high; but no European had ever seen them. After an unsuccessful attempt in 1911, Captain Bailey set out with Captain H. T. Morshead in 1913. They had no official sanction of the Government of India or permission from the Tibetan Government. With very little equipment they crossed the deserted mountains to Chimdro, only to meet with innumerable suspicions. When they had reassured the Tibetans they penetrated further down the Tsangpo gorges than even Kintup had done, Morshead meanwhile making what is still the authoritative map of the area. Bailey only turned back when, exhausted by sickness and deserted by a gang of thieves, he was faced by an unscaleable cliff. Having solved the mystery of the falls, the two explorers pursued their journey, mapping the uncharted frontier of Tibet.

This is a classic journey of Tibetan exploration and it won for Bailey, discoverer of the Blue Poppy, the Royal Geographical Society's Gold Medal. On this journey he discovered many wonders, the great peak of Gyala Peri, the pathetic colony of Tibetans who had failed to find the Glass Mountains and were being picked off by savage neighbours, the Yigrong flood which swept dead Tibetans even into the tea gardens of Assam, to say nothing of a featherless parrot which said "Om Mane Padme Hum".