Tibet (251) up images of a mystic land. Snow-capped mountain peaks pierce the blue sky and fierce chilly winds sweep the rolling grasslands. Maroon-robed Buddhist monks pray in remote monasteries and (252) horsemen pound the rugged earth. People in this high plateau perform punishing rituals like prostrating hundreds of miles in tattered clothes on pilgrimage. Spirits, spells and flying apparitions are part of the Tibetan world. In short, Tibet remains an exotica. Such images are largely the result of books by Western travellers and explorers in the last century which helped in keeping the mystique alive. And when the Communist rulers took over Tibet in the 1950s and began (253) Chinese language and culture on the people, Tibet's own history started to (254) in the background. Thus, the only books available in English to Tsering Wangmo Dhompa as a young girl growing up in India and Nepal as a refugee (255) those written by Westerners, and so she came to view the country as a forbidden land, a place where fantasy and fable collaborated against dramatic backdrop of mountains, black magic and people with strange customs and appearances.