Mount Kailas's Journey To A Mountain

Mount Kailas is almost 22,000 feet high in elevation and 4,300 feet counter line to summit. It is the source of some of the largest and most important rivers in Asia: The Indus River, the Sutlej River, the Brahmaputra River, and the Karnali River. This great is located in Tibet, which has been taken over control by the Chinese since 1949, after the Chinese civil war. They control the borders and prohibit westerners from coming in to the country because they don’t want people there taking pictures and seeing what they are doing and happening in the country. Mount Kailas is also great in religious value. It is the holy mountain to four different religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Bön. There is a lot of border trafficking for every year
thousands of pilgrims from all the four different religions go to the holy mountain to complete the great pilgrimage, the Kora from all around Asia.
This is the journey that Colin Thubron sets out to complete.
At the beginning of the book To a Mountain in Tibet (2011) Colin Thubron writes, “Im doing this on account of the dead. Sometimes journeys begin long before their first step is taken. Mine, without my knowing, starts not long ago, in a hospital ward, as the last of my family dies” (9). He answers this when someone asks him why he is doing the pilgrimage. He embarks on this journey to try to relive his sorrows. To help with the burden he carries with the loss of all of his family. Perfoming the Kora cleans the pilgrim and all of the family of sins. The journey is full of physical, mental, and spiritual challenges. By overcoming these, Colin Thubron claims that he is disburdened but it is believed that there is evidence in his book that show he is not completely disburdened and that he is lying to himself by saying he
is.
Both of Thubron’s parents and his sister have passed away and he finds himself very lonely. He is desperate for some relief because the memories of his family seem to haunt his thoughts and mind. This is shown in the book in various occasions. . “Trekkers at high altitudes sometimes sense a person walking a few paces behind them, just out of sight. Often this person is dead. I never feel this, but once or twice I imagine someone walking a little ahead of me” (203). Here I l believe he is telling himself that he doesn’t feel this way but I sense a hint that those people he saw in front of him where one of his family members. He is very lonely and wishes to be with his family. It seems as though he is struggling to catch up to those people he thinks he sees ahead of him but he can’t and this only brings him more sorrow.
Towards the end of the book and his journeys Colin Thubron reflects upon his sisters death, “Grindelwald was where my sister died, killed by an avalanche at the age of twenty-one. Between rock, snow, skiing. … For years my stricken mother could not speak of her, her memory under silence.” (189) I think was brought this about is that he is in similar conditions of rock and snow. It hurts him to think of this. Also after he mentions this he doesn’t write about something that mends this wound. He just goes back to what is going on in the trip which makes me believe that that is an open wound that has not yet healed and that stings when it is touched.
Death affects people in many ways.
It causes sorrow and sadness. It causes longing for the lost person to come back. It leaves people empty lonely. This happened Colin Thubron. It left him very empty because he lost all of his family members. He is the only one left. He is very lonely an expresses his lonely thoughts in the book. It doesn’t seem like he has anyone important in his life for him to value or keep him company. He reflects upon this. He writes while on this journey, “I wait, suddenly desolate. I feel sick at some imagined loneliness. Someone was trying to reach me, and I did not answer (155).” Long trips like this the one Thubron embarked give people a lot of time to think and ponder. Sometimes this can help and make people reflect on their lives and help them make them better; but sometimes it just causes more harm than goos like in Colin Thubrons case. All this his time he is spending remembering and missing his gone family members. He is not moving past their deaths and is instead just contemplating their deaths. This is defently not helpful and in no way is
disburdening.
A burden is anything that holds someone down in life. It is like baggage that people have to so carry around. Some peoples’ baggage is bigger and heavier and for others, it’s smaller and easier to deal with. Colin Thubron’s burden was the death of first his father, and then mother and sister. This caused pain, loneliness, and a cloud of confusion in Thubron’s life. This really weighed down on him and e needed someone or something to take so weight of his shoulders. He turned to this journey hoping to find some sort of relief, answers, and possibly some comfort and company in his life. Embarking on this journey was what he had chosen to deal with this burden he carried. People deal with the problems and troubles in their lives in different ways. Some are successful and some are not. Different things work for different people. Sometimes time does the trick or sometimes it takes a friend to come in or nature. No matter what you do or try isn’t it just all in the mind?