A classic account of a trip through China during the golden age of travelIn 1935 Ella Maillart contemplated one of the most arduous journeys in the world: the "impossible journey" from Peking, then a part of Japanese-occupied China, through the distant province of Sinkiang (present day Tukestan), to Kashmir. Enlisting with newswriter Peter Fleming (with the caveat that his company remain tolerable), Maillart undertook a journey considered almost beyond imagination for any European and doubly so for a woman.The trip promised hardships such as typhus and bandits, as well as the countless hazards surrounding the civil war between Chinese communists and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists. Setting out with pockets full of Mexican money (the currency used in China at the time), Maillart encountered a way of life now lost, but one that then had gone unchanged for centuries.Maillart describes it all with the sharp eye and unvarnished prose of a veteran reporter-the missionaries and rogues, parents binding daughters' feet with rags, the impatient Fleming lighting fires under stubborn camels. It's a hard road, not that Maillart cares. At all times she is a witty, always-enchanted guide-except when it comes to bureaucrats.Forbidden Journey ranks among other travel narratives like Fleming's News from Tartary, (based on the same journey) and Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana. But it is also a portrait of a fascinating woman, one of many women from the pre-WWII era who ignored convention and traveled in hidden lands. It remains a vivid account of its time and a classic of travel literature.

FORBIDDEN JOURNEY

Travel

Maillart, Ella

Asia

RANDOM HOUSE UK

<p>Set in 1932, when by the standards of the time for someone who was both a Westerner and a woman, extensive travel within central Asia could only be a pipedream, the extensive travels Ella Maillart describes so vividly in TURKESTAN SOLO are the product of a truly determined traveller's spirit. - excerpt from inside front page</p>

Turkestan Solo: One Woman's Expedition from the Tien Shan to the Kizil Kum (Century Travel Classic)

History

David&Charles

<p>In 1932, long before travelling in Central Asia became fashionable, Ella Maillart travelled to Russian Turkestan, bordered by China, Tibet, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Her dream was to see the mountains that lay on the fringes of China and the Takla Makan desert. She travelled like a nomad - slowly, by camel and on foot. Setting out from Moscow, she crossed Kyrgyzstan as far as the Tien Shan range (the Celestial Mountains). She climbed the 5,000 metre-high Sari Tor on makeshift skis, explored the legendary cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara, travelled down the Amu Daria river and crossed, solo, the freezing and hostile wastes of the Kizil Kum, the Desert of Red Sands. Her companions are drawn from both past and present - Mongolian princesses rub shoulders with Trotskyist exiles, whilst pilgrims and dervishes ride alongside emperors and kings. Even today, a trip like this would be considered daring. That Ella Maillart did it, largely alone and more than 70 years ago, makes her journey all the more remarkable.</p>

Turkestan Solo: A Journey Through Central Asia (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

World

Tauris Parke Paperbacks

Voie Cruelle

Payot *

Ti puss

La voie cruelle_1_ere_ed - fermeture et bascule vers 9782228915717 (Petite bibliothèque payot/voyageurs) (French Edition)

PARMI LA JEUNESSE RUSSE-1ERE EDITION (PETITE BIBLIOTHEQUE PAYOT)

La Voie cruelle: Deux femmes, une Ford vers l'Afghanistan

Reference

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Des monts célestes aux sables rouges: Turkestan solo (Collection Visages sans frontières) (French Edition)

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Der bittere Weg.

Travel Writing

Lenos Verlag

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