Aall our dreams begin in youth. As a child I found the achievements of the heroes of our day far more inspiring than book-learning. The men who went out to explore new lands or with toil and self-sacrifice fitted themselves to become champions in the field of sport, the conquerors of the great peaks - to imitate such men was the goal of my ambition."
So wrote Heinrich Harrer in the preface to his famous book "Seven Years in Tibet", and he continued, "Since then many years have passed, but I have never been able to cut loose from Asia. How all this came about, and what it led to, I shall try to describe in this book, and as I have no experience as an author I shall content myself with the unadorned facts."
The unadorned facts are what the above 1956 documentary by Hans Nieter uses to describe Hans Harrer's incredible struggle to reach Lhasa, Tibet's forbidden city, in January 1946. The documentary never became a Hollywood blockbuster like the 1997 movie with Brad Pitt, and neither did Heinrich Harrer's 1985 sequel "Return to Tibet" become a bestseller like "Seven Years in Tibet". If you're interested, you can read it here.
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