Do you ever feel like travelling off to foreign climes, to adventure in exotic places?
Alexandra David-Neel did. Her inspiring and adventurous life is therefore the subject of this week’s Pinning Inspiration.
Born in France in 1868 as Louise Eugenie Alexandrine Marie
David, this remarkable woman moved to Belgium aged six and by the age of
eighteen had already completed solo trips to Switzerland, Spain and England.
She travelled through India between 1890-91 and only
terminated her travels there because she began to run out of money!
Alexandra travelled with a French opera company from
1895-1897, joining them as prima donna through their travels in Indo-China.
Known for being a feminist and anarchist, Alexandra wrote an
anarchist treatise in 1899, which publishers did not dare to print. However, her
friend Jean Haustont printed a few copies and the book is now translated into
several languages.
As well as leaning towards feminism and anarchy, Alexandra
was Buddhist and spiritualist. After meeting Philippe Neel in Tunis in 1900,
she married him in 1904, but left him to return to India in 1911, where she
studied Buddhism. The next year she met the thirteenth Dalai Lama.
Continuing her study, Alexandra David-Neel spent two years
living in a cave near the Tibetan border. During this time she met the Aphur
Yongden, a monk, who she adopted in later years. The pair became lifelong
travelling companions. They met the Panchen Lama after trespassing in Tibet in
1916, but were evicted by British authorities. The outbreak of World War I
prevented them from returning to Europe, so instead they went to Japan. It was
here that they met a man who had travelled into Tibet disguised as a Chinese
doctor. Inspired, Alexandra and Yongden travelled through China, but their aim
was clearly to return to Tibet: they arrived in Lhasa in 1924, disguised as
pilgrims. The companions remained there for two months.
In 1928, Alexandra separated from her husband and settled in
Digne, France. She spent ten years writing about her travels and adventures.
Her most famous work is ‘Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet’ – Magic and Mystery
in Tibet.
Alexandra reunited with Philippe Neel in 1937 and travelled
again with Yongden. At this point she was sixty-nine and their travels took
them through the Soviet Union, China, India, and once again Tibet. They ended
up in Tachienlu, where she studied Tibetan literature. The two travellers
completed the circumambulation of Amnye Machen, a holy mountain in Tibet.
These travels kept them from Europe for the duration of
World War II, but in 1946 they returned to France. Philippe Neel had died in
1941 and Alexandra needed to settle his estate.
Once back in France, Alexandra continued to write books and
also lectured on her travels.
Her last camping trip was at the age of eighty-two and took
her to an Alpine lake 2,240m above sea level, in early winter.
In 1955, her lifelong travelling companion and adopted son
died, aged just 56. Alexandra was heartbroken and spent the next four years
wandering between hotels. It was during this period that she met Marie-Madeline
Peyronnet, who would become her secretary.
She celebrated her 100th birthday in 1969 and renewed her
passport six months later, with the intention of travelling in a Renault 4 CV,
with Peyronnet as her chauffer.
Alexandra continued to write, believing it important to
spend part of the day being intellectually stimulated. Despite suffering from
rheumatism so bad that it left her almost paralysed, she did not stop her work.
Alexandra David-Neel died in 1969, a few days before her
101st birthday. In 1973, Marie-Madeline
Peyronnet travelled to India with the ashes of Alexandra and Yongden, where she
scattered their ashes in the Ganges.
Information sources:
The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Discoveries and Pastimes
by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
Are you inspired by stories of explorers?
Do you think Alexandra was brave?
Have you the desire do travel abroad?
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