‘Remote, mountainous and forbidding, here shamans still fly through the night, hidden valleys conceal portals to other worlds, yetis leave footprints in the snow, spirits and demons abound, and the gods are appeased by the blood of sacrificed beasts’- From Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains
A thrilling and dangerous adventure through Arunachal Pradesh, one of the world’s least explored places.
‘With tremendous verve and determination Antonia plunges through an extraordinary world. Thank heavens she survived to tell this vivid and thoughtful tale’ Ted Simon, author of Jupiter’s Travels
‘A tale of delight and exuberance – and one I’d thoroughly recommend. Bolingbroke-Kent proves a great travelling companion – compassionate, spirited and with a sharp eye for human oddity’ Benedict Allen, author of Edge of Blue Heaven and Into the Abyss
‘A transformative journey that gripped me from the very first page’ Alastair Humphreys, author of The Boy Who Biked the World and Microadventures
A mountainous state clinging to the far north-eastern corner of India, Arunachal Pradesh – meaning ‘land of the dawn-lit mountains’ – has remained uniquely isolated. A fragile buffer against Chinese expansionism, Arunachal Pradesh was closed to foreigners between 1950 and 1998, and even today the need for permits and restrictions makes this a little-visited region. Steeped in myth and mystery, not since pith-helmeted explorers went in search of the fabled ‘Falls of the Brahmaputra’ has an outsider dared to traverse it.
In the spring of 2016, travel writer Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent ventured to the farthest valleys of this ‘last Shangri La’ to chronicle the history and legends of this mysterious and barely known part of the world. Following in the footsteps of British explorers such as Colonel F. M Bailey and Ursula Graham Bower, Antonia’s thrilling, gruelling and at times dangerous journey spanned some 2,000 miles, from snowy Himalayan passes to the humid jungles of the Indo-Burmese border.
On the way she spent time with animist tribes, shamans, former head-hunters, conservationists, hunters, lamas and Tibetan exiles. She also investigated the role this forbidding location played as a strategic line of defence against the advancing Japanese army in the closing stages of the Second World War, and how the people who live there today are bracing themselves for the encroachment of the modern world on their ancient way of life.
The Author :
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent is an established travel writer and public speaker with a particular love of embarking on difficult journeys through remote regions. Her previous books, Tuk-Tuk to the Road, (The Friday Project, 2007) and A Short Ride in the Jungle, (Summersdale, 2014) were very well received, and she has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows. She graduated from Edinburgh University with a 1st class MA in modern history, then later drove a tuk tuk a World Record breaking 12, 500 miles from Thailand to the UK and winning Cosmopolitan magazine’s ‘Fun Fearless Female’ Award in the process. She currently splits her time between writing, travelling and working as a freelance TV producer for the BBC and ITV. Find her at www.theitinerant.co.uk or on Twitter and Instagram as @AntsBK.
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent :
Simon & Schuster Paperback Original | 15 June 2017 | Rs 499/-
