Where the Indus is Still Young

The author describes her journey with her six-year-old daughter, on foot, to Baltistan, a desolate but beautiful region of Kashmir. Their travels took them into the Karakorum mountains in the heart of the western Himalayas and along the perilous Indus Gorge. Accompanied only by a polo pony and surviving chiefly on the local diet of dried apricots, they endured conditions that tested their limits of ingenuity, fortitude and courage, and, remarkably, managed to retain their good humour. Dervla Murphy's other travel books include "Muddling Through In Madagascar" and "Cameroon With Egbert".