Wyn’s first planet. Sun Ko Du has been mentioned several times in the past as the martial art practised on six inch wide planks over deep chasms. I decided it was time we SAW the place where it originated. Sun Ko Du, of course, is meaningless. It sounds vaguely like a martial art. But when it came to The Doctor’s Malvorian name I used some real research. Do-rje Gyel-tsen is Tibetan for “Diamond Prince of Courage” and his ancestor, Do-rje Thup is Tibetan for Diamond Heart. No, I don’t speak Tibetan. But you can find just about anything on Google. Even an English/Tibetan dictionary.

Malvoria looks a lot like Tibet. I had been watching one of Michael Palin’s travel programmes a week or two before, and the views of the Himalayas, with their impossibly deep valleys were very fresh in my mind. I also had an idea of the mountain top monastery in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with another impossibly deep valley. But it was the Tibetan style of things that seemed to commend itself in this instance.

So the monastery of Malvorian Sun Ko Du and its culture of peace and equality and very dangerous martial arts, of which The Doctor is a Master and Rose a gifted amateur at least. It becomes Wyn’s rite of passage as a TARDIS companion. She has to get over her issues to some extent and prove herself capable. And she does. Meanwhile a typical jealous rival scenario plays out with The Doctor finally triumphant.

http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/static-187