In his day Lowell Thomas was one of the most famous American broadcasters, who was well-known throughout the world for his travelogues – a genre he basically invented – and as being a man ever ready for adventure.
Probably his most famous film was when he met with Lawrence of Arabia and publicised the war in Palestine, giving presentations after the first world war throughout the USA and Europe.
In 1949, because of his high profile, he was invited to visit Tibet and to meet with the Dalai Lama. No foreigner had ever been invited before, but the Tibetans were seeking support to ward off China at the time.
He went – on foot for most of the way from India to Tibet – along with his son Lowell Thomas Jr., and this is a record of their adventure traveling to what was at that time the world’s most remote country.
He made it to Lhasa, and he met the Dalai Lama, and he also filmed His Holiness, in the earliest known film to survive. The journey in was difficult, but it became even more difficult when he was thrown from his horse on the way out.
In the film you will see Tibet before it was opened up to the world, the earliest known film of the Dalai Lama, and other very senior Lamas around him, and some of the senior politicians in Tibet at the time. It is truly a historical record.
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to see an album of screenshots click here