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

What decided me to go to Lhasa was, above all, the absurd prohibition which closes Thibet. One of the great adventure classics, published in 1927, and considered one of the best adventure books of the last 100 years by Outside magazine, My Journey to Lhasa recounts Alexandra David-Neel's 1924 journey through unknown territory to the forbidden city of Lhasa. Disguised as a Tibetan pilgrim traveling with her adopted son, a native Tibetan, David-Neel made a treacherous midwinter trek over the mountains to Lhasa, encountering bands of robbers, corrupt military agents, bouts of starvation, and wild animals. The first Western woman to be received by any Dalai Lama, the author involves us intensely in a world that no longer exists -- that of free Tibet. . . . Fervent and admirably unsentimental. -- The New York Times Book Review