AUTHOR : Alexandra David-Néel,

OUTLINE : The Amazing Story of a Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City Lhasa.

Rating – 4.5/5,
Pages – 376,
First Published – 01, Jan 1927,
Language – English,
Genres – Travel, Nonfiction, Adventure, History, Biography, Memoir, Asia, Buddhism, Biography Memoir, Spirituality

Synopsis:

In the year 1924, a lady named Alexandra David-Néel born in Paris, decided to travel to the forbidden (to foreigners) city of Lhasa, capital of Tibet. It’s not a normal journey but to disguise natives and to reach Lhasa without being caught by authorities. Through-out the journey she acted like a beggar lady who is travelling with her young Son. Story moves on how she crosses forests, rivers, lands, villages and authority check posts with little food they carry. They beg for food, and survive on the mercy of local people. And at last reached Lhasa, stayed there for 2 months and then returned back. It’s not a story but an experience which had and still inspires people, like Elise Wortley.

My Experience:

This book came to me in a very unusual way. On a weekend, I was helping my Son with Uncharted-4 (a PS-4 game) and the game’s story referred to this book and showed that it’s part of a book collection. I became curious and instantly ordered it on Amazon. While reading the book, many times I wondered how that place would be where the protagonist is travelling and did some searching online for places referred to in the book. I got to know many things, and also came across this site, https://www.womanwithaltitude.com. Elise Wortley seeks for adventures just like this book mentioned. She travelled to many places and provided very interesting details on this website. You may find it interesting too.

Reading is my hobby, I don’t rush and re-read many pages if I had to. A scene from book

Protagonist had to spend the night far from a village so in the dark of night, she and her son found a small cave structure beneath a big rock and spent the night there. Morning they found a big pile of animal bones in a corner. They have been sleeping in the home of a Jungle beast and were lucky that the beast decided to spend the night somewhere else.

Book tells about the rituals and traditions of natives. What they eat, how they live, what they wear, how they treat outsiders and how cruel mountains can be. In today’s world this journey doesn’t seem difficult but around 100 years back doing this was courageous. 100 years back humans were really different, they were very very superstitious, stubborn with rituals. Sometimes, it feels like they were wiser than us. Narration doesn’t stop anywhere, it keeps on moving. Sometimes, it looks like a foolish idea to travel so far. What is the purpose of all this? Why take such risks? Many times, writers mentioned such questions too and answers were also given there. In brief, risks are not risks for everyone, how a person perceives the world, matters a lot. Risk for one person can be an opportunity for another. That’s why this book inspires people around the world.

Below is the copy I have with me. Feel free to share yours thoughts, opinions in below comment.