My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City
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- ISBN13: 9780060596552
- Condition: New
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Product Description
An exemplary travelogue of danger and achievement by the Frenchwoman Madame Alexandra David–Neel of her 1923 expedition to Tibet, the fifth in her series of Asian travels, and her personal recounting of her journey to Lhasa, Tibet’s forbidden city.
In order to penetrate Tibet and reach Lhasa, she used her fluency of Tibetan dialects and culture, disguised herself as a beggar with yak hair extensions and inked skin and tackled some of the roughest terrain and climate in the World. With the help of her young companion, Yongden, she willingly suffered the primitive travel conditions, frequent outbreaks of disease, the ever–present danger of border control and the military to reach her goal.
The determination and sheer physical fortitude it took for this woman, delicately reared in Paris and Brussels, is inspiration for men and women alike.
David–Neel is legendary for being the first Western woman to have been received by any Dalai Lama and as a passionate scholar and explorer of Asia, hers is one of the most remarkable of all travellersߴales.
Amazon.com Review
In any time, Alexandra David-Neel would have been considered an extraordinary woman, but in the Victorian era, she was truly exceptional. Born in 1868, David-Neel eschewed the dances, dinners, and proper marriages common to women of her era and social standing in order to indulge her fierce independence and insatiable intellectual curiosity. Her interest in comparative religions dated back to early childhood; even as a student in a Catholic convent school, she kept statues of both Christ and the Buddha in her room. She made her first trip to Asia in 1891, then supported herself as a light-opera singer and journalist before marrying a seemingly conventional man, Philip Neel. Fortunately for both Alexandra David-Neel and for posterity, Philip was less stodgy than his position as a well-off engineer might imply; though he did not accompany her, he supported his wife’s explorations and even acted as her literary agent when she started to write about the places she visited. Alexandra and Philip remained the closest of friends until his death in 1941.
David-Neel spent years traveling in India and China, but perhaps her most daring adventure was the trip to Tibet’s forbidden city of Lhasa. She was 55 years ancient at the time, fluent in Tibetan and well versed in both Sanskrit and Buddhism. Disguised as a man, she spent four treacherous months on the road before finally apt the first European woman ever to enter Lhasa. My Journey to Lhasa is David-Neel’s own account of her astounding journey, one fraught with hardship and danger. It is both a chronicle of a bygone time and a testimonial to a remarkable human.
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I did not see what the huge deal was, and would not recommend it. Her language and the way she treated people is offensive, Eurocentric, condescending and narrow-minded — predictable of many travel books of this period. For persons trying to learn about Tibet, there is not enough here to satisfy. This is your classic I-am-to-be-admired-because-I-left-the-comforts-of-civilization-applaud-me themed books. She is not a traveller but a trophy collector.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
All I really need to say is not in review of Mrs David Neel’s book but to remark that I read somewhere in your bewildering pages that she went to Lhasa disguised as a man, which seems to demonstrate that whoever wrote that hadn’t bothered to read her book. According to her version she was disguised as an ancient Tibetan Woman from western Tibet, the mother of the Lama, Yongden, who she claims to have adopted and who remained with her for the rest of his life according to additional bits and pieces I have gleaned over the years. Somebody,probably Sydney Smith, said he never read books he had to review because it would influance his preconceptions so, or something like that. The distress with putting lies into print is that people are inclined to judge the printed word. “Of course its bloody right.” he said “Didn’t I read it in the bloody paper.”
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
In 1923 at the age of 55, Alexandra David-Neel disguised herself as an ancient Tibetan pilgrim and traveled for four treacherous months with her young companion, Lama Yongden, all the way to Lhasa, apt the first European woman ever to enter Lhasa. Along the way, she had to suffer the primitive and regularly treacherous travel conditions, and the ever-present danger of being caught.
I really liked this adventure book for its honest descriptions of an earlier, purer Tibetan culture, long before the Chinese invasion. She writes honestly and candidly about the customs and values of the people she meets, neither romanticizing nor criticizing.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This woman’s incredible journey to Tibet shoud be an inspiration to all women interested in travel. Her determination to perfect this journey, and the physcial might it took to manage it, was awesome.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Every warm-blooded traveler knows that to savor a journey, to experience a journey, one has to become the journey. Of course, that same traveler will also tell you that typically that also means parking one’s notions of comfort at home in exchange for rewards that happily outstrip bodily discomfiture, because places of intense emotion reveal themselves only to the hardy and the intrepid.
But this tale chronicles a veritable traveler boot camp! To bed down on rocks, sleep on snow, go hungry, thirsty and unclean, travel by starlight, dangle from a rope over a gorge, beg for food, awaken to the snuffle of wild predators… all this by a woman, nearly a 100 years ago, 55 years ancient and on the run. I thrill and quiver at once and envy her the journey sometimes (and not so much at additional times!).
I recently had a tantalizing taste of Tibet’s fantasmagoric beauty – like that of a land spellbound by unscrupulous sorcery, where life is harsh, unforgiving, unbending but so brilliant by natural splendor that one is unable to escape its thrall. As her adventure unfolds in this well-paced account, I could imagine her tramping through these fabled lands, forging through fog-filled valleys, melting into the moonshine or greeting a golden sunrise at the end of a hard night’s trek. I regret that she doesn’t intermission to paint a fuller picture of what must have been spectacular scenery.
It is also appealing to sketch her personality through her own pen. The portrait that emerges is that of a strong-willed, intelligent, to some extent arrogant woman of unwavering determination, stark endurance and one who likes a challenge. I have to applaud her unconditionally for the original motivation that launched her on this endeavor. She would have made a fantastic CEO in our times.
Yes, the style is a small dated, as one reviewer commented, but why should that be surprising? This is a period piece. I find her use of Tibetan words occasionally distracting and the Introduction by Diana Rowan is downright hagiographic and entirely dispensable, or at least, deferrable until the end of the leader’s own tale.
If you are a traveler at heart this travelogue cannot fail to touch you.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5