My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City

Nice information

Best book for Tibet study

Good read

As expected.

Good read

Interesting for first time reading.......

A truly remarkable woman.

This is truly an amazing journal of an epic journey in extreme conditions. Puts us with our Goretex and freeze dried food in our place as wimps by comparison. It also shows us a place that few westerners ever saw in those times.

I wont get into a debate about how much of this book is or isn't factual. My only wonder is, given that it covers a very long walk pretending to be a beggar on a pilgrimage to Lhasa in the company of her adopted son the lama Jongden, is just how did she record everything that is depicted in this book? Setting that query aside though, this book tells a truly amazing story of how the author made her way from China all the way to the fabled Forbidden City of Lhasa. Although she wasn't the first westerner to get there (the British forces were in the country), her story is made all the more remarkable given the fact that she had to do her travelling in secret. The book, despite its age (it was first published in 1927), is very readable. I found the descriptions of both the landscape and, in particular the people she meets along the way, both interesting and convincing. Given the Shangri-La status in which Tibet is viewed today there is a fair amount of debunking contained within these pages. For example, not all Tibetans turn out to be peace loving, animal loving, caring and spiritual. Indeed along the way she comes across robbers, excessive violence/abuse and a great deal of superstition by the uneducated. Indeed the Tibetan propensity for superstition is used by the author and her companion to extricate themselves from some difficult circumstances. However, despite the hardships and the unsavoury nature of some of the people she meets on her journey, Alexandra David-Neel is a lover and academic of all Tibetan culture and religion(s), and this comes across strongly. Additionally, and to me surprisingly, there is also the occasional sense of humour evident. Well worth a read by anyone interested in the life of the ordinary peasants of Tibet before the country was opened up to external influences.

Interesting and amazing reading

To the readers: Don't waste your money. The seller simply took an OCR output and didn't bother to proofread, much less mark the chapters in the table of contents for our convenience. There are even sections of text missing. To the "publisher": You are harming your customers. Do you not want to take pride in your work? To Amazon: I bought this e-book version based on high recommendations for the book in general. Once again, your lack of separating reviews for different editions/formats is harmful to your clients.