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In May 1940 who young French scientist / explorers set forth on their second Tibetan expedition. Andre Guibaut and Louis Victor Liotard headed out beyond the known map to the wilds of Tibet visited by only a few pioneering explorers before them. Their anthropological and geographical works involved mapping and surveying - of the land and rivers but also taking measurements of the Tibetan's themselves, and recording their customs.
The largest part of the book however deals with the violent ambush of the men and their team, and the death of Louis Liotard. Tibet was well known for it wild and old world brigands, so this type of confrontation was always a risk, but this attack took the men by surprise, and Guibaut was lucky to have been able to escape. Bullets had pierced his clothing in four places (two bullets) although he was unharmed, his two Tibetan assistants who survived, Tchrachy with a bullet lodged near his spine, Yong Rine miraculously unharmed, make a long journey for a large monastery. Here they recuperate while a search is made of the pass where the attack took place, but they find Liotard and Tze, the cook are dead.
After spending a number of weeks at the Monastery, the men make their return journey to Chinese civilisation. He arrives back September 1940, some four months after departing.
Well written Guibaut explains well the uncertainty after the attack - he is separated from his companion, one moving forward from the yaks, the other retreating backwards, and the desperate scramble to escape - wanting to return and check on his friend, but unable; the weeks in the Monastery, while they negotiate for guides and assistance to return to China; even the uncertainty of the position of France - Vichy France vs the Free French, while was all in play as he was isolated in Tibet.
Unlikely to be a commonly found book, it is worth keeping an eye out for.
4 stars
P167 - on the return ride
“... but like them I took great pieces of meat in my hands and tore them apart with my teeth; like them I wiped my greasy hands on my clothes with a gesture that had very soon become second-nature to me. It doesn't take long to strip off the varnish of civilisation.”
“I gazed with particular excitement - may the reader excuse my childishness - at a plain toothbrush in a glass, and could not decide which caused me the greatest pleasure, the brush or the glass.”
