{"product_id":"the-mountain-will-decide-9781637772560","title":"The Mountain Will Decide","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Where will you go when I die?\" Swenson's elderly aunt asked, triggering her first journey to Tibet. But what began as a trip in memoriam expanded to a fascination with a country with a deeply Buddhist culture, dominated and exploited by its wealthy neighbor China. The fascination in turn enlarged to an obsession whose essence became a mountain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver a couple of decades Swenson traveled every year or two back to Tibet to places that enchanted her, that fascinated her, that she needed to see again-Lhasa, Gyantze, Shigatze, Tholing, Tsaparang. She became friends with a Tibetan woman of her own age. She traveled sometimes with friends, sometimes only with a guide. But the sacred mountain, Mount Kailash, and the thirty-three mile walk, the \u003cem\u003ekhora\u003c\/em\u003e, around the mountain became a path she yearned to return to. Here, in the rain-shadow of the Himalayas in a landscape dry and ascetic, sere in its stone-boned beauty at 18,600 feet she experienced an illumination of her life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Red Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50392927535378,"sku":"9781637772560","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f545ae58-af74-47b3-a263-2be414c74b15.jpg?v=1728979964","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-mountain-will-decide-9781637772560","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}