After travelling through revolution-ridden Iran, he settled full-time in Kathmandu, where he worked as a photographer, Himalayan guide, and journalist. He photographed the 1990 People's Movement for Stern, Asiaweek, and others, and a year later received the first ever one-year residence permit for Mustang. Peter Matthiessen and Laird collaborated to publish East of Lo Monthang: In The Land of Mustang in 1995. Laird was also the first Westerner to legally walk through the Himalayas of Western Nepal to Mount Kailash; and the first westerner to descend any part of Tibet's Tsangpo river in a coracle in modern times.