In Search of Mount Kailash

ISBN 9788189602239

Winner of the 2025 Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature

Secluded in a remote corner of the Himalayas, Tibet’s ‘Mount Kailash’ is the world’s most widely revered mountain – and after a decade of travelling, Alex McKay hitch-hiked to Kailash in 1986 and quickly became obsessed with it. Soon after, he became an academic and published the definitive history of the sacred site and its Indian off-shoots.

In Search of Mount Kailash recounts Alex’s early Himalayan travels and how he came to understand the Kailash phenomena. Along the way he meets with extraordinary scholars and devout monks, colourful spiritual masters and hospitable Maharajas, humble pilgrims and wandering shepherds. He interviews the Dalai Lama, states down the barrel of a Chinese soldier’s rifle, and ultimately finds an unexpected home away from home near the source of the Ganges.

Indian Subcontinent edition by Rachna Books in special partnership with Sun Rider Press, UK.

As an 18 year old, New Zealand-born Alex McKay followed the “Hippy Trail” in the early 1970s, hitch-hiking from Europe to India via the Arabian Gulf. He subsequently worked for the Swedish NGO in Bangladesh & spent many years travelling before his first, life-changing visit to Tibet in 1984. He worked on North Sea oil rigs & as a private investigator in Sydney Australia before studying Tibetan history and culture at the London School of Oriental and African Studies.

Earning a PhD in South Asian History, he became a lecturer & research fellow in London & Leiden, & has published four academic monographs & around forty articles in the field, as well as writing a book on the great 1967 All Blacks rugby team. He is now retired & living in the Australian countryside, occasionally emerging to lecture and lead cultural tour groups to such places as Bhutan & Morocco.