Among the Sherpas

This is an unusual travel book by a middle-aged British botanist who spent six months as a guest of a remote Sherpa community high up in the Himalayas of Nepal, where virtually all family needs are produced on the hill farm.

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On a botanical expedition to Nepal at the height of the summer monsoon in 1995, Janet Wheatcroft came to rely on a remarkable Sherpa guide called Dawa, who soon became her rescuer and friend. Subsequently, she invited him to live with her family for six months in the Scottish countryside. His tales of life in a Sherpa village and as a climbing guide to Everest mountaineers, of ghosts and spirits in the high mountains, of Buddhist festivals and pujas, led to an invitation to share his family's life back home in Nepal. For 50-year-old Janet Wheatcroft, this was a chance she'd somehow wanted since, as a child, she had pored for hours over relief maps of the Himalayas. Suffering from mid-life depression, the author found strength from Dawa's extraordinary spiritual equilibrium. His invitation to join his family proved a turning point, and led to the greatest adventure of her life.