trekearth:

The final series of photos I have for Tibet are from Heinrich Harrer, the renowned Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, and author who befriended the 14th Dalai Lama during the Second World War. If you haven’t seen the movie Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt playing Heinrich, you owe it to yourself to watch the masterpiece. It will not only be a great movie but it will teach you about Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s current plight in Tibet in regards to the chinese government. These photos are all from a great piece in National Geographic. Enjoy

Haggard and half-starved, the author Heinrich Harrer and a companion, Peter Aufschnaiter, arrived in Tibet in early 1946 after a hazardous 21-month flight from a wartime internment camp in India. Officials ordered them to leave, then relented. Extraordinary experiences befell Mr. Harrer during seven years in the veiled land beyond the Himalayas. Before China invaded Tibet, he became a friend and tutor of the Dalai Lama, its spiritual and temporal ruler.

The Potala, fortress of Tibet’s god-king, broods over the flooded Kyi Valley. Nearing Tibet’s capital, Mr. Harrer passed these groves of poplars and willows, transplanted like all other trees in the deforested Kyi Valley. Above him loomed the Dalai Lama’s 300-year-old palace that Tibetans believe was created by spirits. Fearfully the author approached an archway in the center tomb. He felt sure guards would seize him or turn him back; instead he found only beggars standing vigil at the sacred portal.