The Land of the Sherpas

In 1949, when Nepal opened it long restricted borders, among the first to make a journey there was Ella Maillart. In this short and very matter-the-fact book she shares the details of her journey and shares a selection of her photography.

Her seven short chapters are precisely written - there are not many pages, but words are not wasted in this writing. It is clear and descriptive, containing a light history only where relevant to the sights she sees. Maillart makes various comparisons to Switzerland, where the two mountainous countries have similarities, and other more specific comparisons to Mongolia and Afghanistan, but more often she just explains with clarity what she is seeing.

Maillart's travel was personal - she appeared to travel on her own in and around Kathmandu, but with a guide and porters in the more distant areas visited. In the villages she was (as is still typical now) invited into houses to sit and take tea, or just to look around. She visited stupas (chorten in Tibetan) and a monastery or two - she even slept in one. Her photographs, although black and white, were excellent and descriptive, and accompanied her narrative really well.

The book was arranged with the written part first, then the descriptions of the 78 photographs. These were usually a title (which was replicated on the photo itself) and a fuller description - a sentence or two, a paragraph at most. The photographs filled the latter part of the book.

From a quick look on the internet (Abes and a more general look) this is a fairly rare book. There are French and German editions reproduced in 2018, but it seems not in English. There don't appear to be any copies of this 1955 edition from Hodder & Stoughton, so i count myself lucky to have been able to buy this recently - although I did pay much more than I normally limit myself to!

5 stars for it's unique position in history.