Product Description

Description: Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith is an inspiring true tale of one couple's courage, love, faith and resolve to trek an ancient pilgrim's trail 1000-kilometers across Tibet. This story of human endurance provides an intimate first-hand look at the valiant struggle of the Tibetan culture to survive -- and at the humanity connecting us all. An IPPY award winner. From flap copy: A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND KILOMETERS BEGAN WITH ONE BOLD STEP. Author Brandon Wilson and his wife challenge the "impossible" and set off on an incredible 1000-kilometer odyssey on foot across Tibet. Join their adventure from Lhasa to Kathmandu, as they become the first Western couple to attempt this perilous trek across the unforgiving Himalayan plains. YAK BUTTER BLUES is a remarkable tale of survival. Alone, with only their stalwart Tibetan horse Sadhu, the Wilsons face Tibet's ruthless environment head-on: the blistering winds, extreme temperatures, sandstorms, blizzards, high altitudes and thinnest of air. Those conditions are made all the more challenging by exhaustion, hunger, illness, inflexible bureaucrats and trigger-happy soldiers. YAK BUTTER BLUES is an inspiring story of faith and the kindness of strangers. The land and climate leave their imprints daily. However, an even more lasting impression is created by monks and villagers eager to share what little they possess: yak butter tea, the warmth of their fire and faith in the Dalai Lama's return. YAK BUTTER BLUES paints a gripping portrait of a culture pushed to the brink of extinction by brutal occupation. YAK BUTTER BLUES is an intimate tale of personal enlightenment. Along the path, the couple gains a sense of greater purpose, wonder, renewed faith--and ultimately discovers what it takes to endure. Reviews: "Wilson observes the impact of the Chinese occupation on the daily lives of Tibetans... Recommended for adventure travel and Tibetan culture collections." ~ Library Journal "An engrossing, fascinating read sure to be relished by those readers interested in adventure travel and the Tibetan culture. It is also a highly spiritual story of faith which reminds us that nothing is really impossible..." ~ Midwest Book Review "A hair-raising yarn...a high-altitude tale of synchronicity, divine providence, begging monks, trigger-happy Chinese soldiers and dehydration." ~ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "You can almost smell the dust and feel the blisters. Worth a read by any adventure or travel-trekking novel enthusiast." ~ Backpacking Light "A true pilgrimage, one that plumbs the heart of troubled Tibet and teaches impatient and stubborn Westerners to slow down and appreciate this amazing planet." ~ Honolulu Advertiser "A wonderful and wild read...charged, alive, and a little threatening. Yak Butter Blues flickers insistently like a flashbulb afterimage in the mind long after the book is tucked away." ~ Richard Bangs, Producer Richard Bangs ADVENTURES "A soaring travel diary. It places the reader in the thick of the action every bit as well as Marco Polo transported Italians to China and, as it seems to me, better than Lowell Thomas led readers in the dust of Lawrence of Arabia." ~ Maui Weekly "Selected as a `Highlighted Title.' These books are honored each month for exhibiting superior levels of creativity, originality, high standards of design and superior production quality." - Independent Publisher "Told with humor and insight, this vivid narrative allows you to vicariously experience life at true Tibetan pace, one step at a time: so close, you can almost smell the yak butter." ~ Michael Buckley, author, Tibet: the Bradt Travel Guide "Inspiring, Engaging, Compassionate! This book is a treasure to the Tibetan people and to the rest of the world. It gives us a true glimpse of Tibet and captures a beautiful land and culture that may not be around in years to come. Well done!" ~ Naomi C. Rose, author, Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138202 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Liz Janes-Brown, The Maui News, November 21, 2004
"Not a guidebook or travel manual, "Yak Butter Blues" is the compelling story of single footsteps through a harsh landscape."

Hannah Nordhaus, Kangri News (International Mountain Explorer's Connection, March 2004)
"If you've traveled independently through Tibet...this lively memoir is sure to provide a yak-scented whiff of nostalgia."

Jim Damico, Wanderingtheworld.com
"Read this book over and over to learn how perseverance in the face of hardship can give us both joy and hope along the road to our futures."

Customer Reviews

Yak Butter Blues
After reading Brandon Wilson's latest book: "Along The Templar Trail", his adventures in foreign lands so beautifully written inspired me to find out more about another one of his pilgrimages where he and his wife Cheryl walked across Tibet.

"Yak Butter Blues", for me, is a far more interesting, suspenseful, informative, and inspiring adventure than anyone in Hollywood could ever conjure up. The book opens itself up for the reader to join Brandon, Cheryl, and their horse Sadhu to experience what they had to go through to achieve their goal to cross Tibet's very forbidding terrain reserved only for the daring and the brave.

Weakened by hunger, illness, bitter cold, and the daily uncertainty of survival, Brandon and Cheryl's spirit remained strong enough to overcome the never ending obstacles thrown at them. Unlike fiction books where one expects the obligatory climatic ending and life changing epiphanies, this book is an autobiographic account of human survival stretched to its limit, and coming out of it alive is profound enough to change the way you look at life.

The highlight of the book for me was Brandon's creative ability of putting a face to each of the local Tibetans he came across, many of them angels who shared their homes and food with Brandon and Cheryl. Extreme poverty did not harden these Tbetan angels' generous hearts. These are people cut off from the eyes of the Western world, and through Brandon's journey we get a rare glimpse into the life of local Tibetans, the hardships they suffer, and the simple joys that bring a smile on their face.

With recent events involving conditions in Tibet that were painfully brought to light, I strongly recommend Yak Butter Blues as a source of information about the part of the world we know almost nothing about.

First Book Soars
The world moves too fast these days to allow most travelogue books any success. A magazine article or a travel agent's poster is all it takes to send the travel-eager reader off to Luxor or Fez. The brilliant achievements of travel writers like Sir Richard Burton have no place in the twenty-first century. That's obvious, but fortunately it is also incorrect.
Brandon Wilson's Yak Butter Blues was probably never intended to reach the upper strata of armchair adventuring, but it does. The book is a soaring travel diary. It places the reader in the thick of the action every bit as well as Marco Polo transported Italians to China and, as it seems to me, better than Lowell Thomas led readers in the dust of Lawrence of Arabia.
I've seen a good part of the world, but when I was young enough to tolerate the grueling realities of Tibet, it seemed impossible--pretty much the way most of the Middle East is out of reach today. Choosing his moment with abandon, but lucking out all the way, Wilson and his wife trekked from Lhasa, Tibet, to Katmandu, Nepal. It's the great pilgrimage of Mahayana Buddhism, walked backward, but it is a remarkable journey. Not one reader in a million will ever make the trek, but I don't think any reader--regardless of age or physical ability--will ever read this book without dreaming of the whole trip.
Gripping Yak Butter in one hand, hopefully holding a better map than Wilson could find in the other, I want to risk it all by walking the road Wilson walked. I absolutely can't do it. Arthritis... age... cowardice... whatever, I won't do it. But, thanks to Wilson, I will not have missed the trek completely.
Naturally, a book about Tibet can't get from page one to the end without some mention of Shangri-La. Wilson knew that, so he tossed in the Shangri-La thing early and got it over with. Then he deals with the hard, cold reality for over 200 more pages. This is a trek tale, not a getting-there tale. They were trekking, not hitching. So, with bleeding blisters on his feet and a wife he'd have liked to save from walking in the cold while coughing and aching, Wilson turns down rides.
They get lost. They get very cold. They are abused at times and treated with remarkable kindness at other times. Till, almost amazingly and yet somehow inevitably, the trek really becomes the spiritual journey it was barely meant to replicate.
Don't be frightened away. The spiritual side of the trip is just a magical color flashing in the sun on the snow or whisper heard in the Himalayan wind. It never takes over the story, even if it may have been the wind beneath the trekkers wings by the end.
Hawai`i people may find a very special pathos in Yak butter Blues. The Tibetan people Wilson meets are losing their language and culture, and the author doesn't fail to make the mental and emotional connection to the plight of Hawaiians. He lives here. How could the parallel have been lost on him. You'll see it before he mentions it. You'll feel it before he points to it. (Very akamai writer, yeah?)

Yak Butter Blues
Very disappointing... The author and his wife travel through an extremely poor country, Tibet & Nepal. Instead of being self suffient, they rely on the kindness of villagers to supply them with lodging and food for themselves and their horse. They offer to pay very meager sums of money(and often haggle)for the villagers hospitality. It is a shame the author does not show more respect and generosity for these villagers. Instead of haggling with the locals over insignificant amounts of money, the author should of been a generous friendly American offering to help. It only takes small amount of money to help the people in this part of the world. If the author could not of spared the extra couple of hundred dollars to be a responsible traveler, he should not of embarked on this journey.