Alexandra David-Néel: To Lhasa, 1924

Years before the dash to Lhasa, David-Néel and her adopted son Yongden spent about three years at Kumbum, where she studied Tibetan books and translated the Prajnaparamita. She loved the setting: mountain ranges held back the clouds, which wrapped the monks' cells in a sea of white mist.

After four months of tramping, the travellers left Dechen at dawn for the last stage to Lhasa. Yongden warned that the Kyi river might hide a post of watchmen. They boarded a crowded ferry among men and beasts and landed unnoticed: hundreds of ragged pilgrims cross the Kyi each year, and nothing distinguished them from the rest. The Kyi flows into the Yarlung Tsangpo, the upper Brahmaputra.

Location precision: The book names the river crossing but not the exact ferry; the pin marks the Lhasa River east of the city.

In the rosy light of sunrise she sighted the Potala, still far away but already majestic, its golden roofs glittering against a blue sky. Then a curtain of whirling sand hid the palace and the road, which she took as a sign of safety. The Potala was the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas; once in the city, she remarked that its interior was Chinese in style.

She reached Lhasa in a crowd of pilgrims, in time for the Monlam Prayer Festival, when thousands of monks gather at the Jokhang Temple to chant. She stayed two months, visiting the holy city and the great monasteries around it. Then she was unmasked because she was too clean, washing at the river each morning, and was denounced to the governor of Lhasa. By the time he acted, she and Yongden had already left for Gyantse.

Location precision: The sources do not say where she watched the festival; the pin marks the Jokhang, where Monlam is held.

Leaving Lhasa, she went to Samye, where the Brahmaputra winds through white sand and gives the monastery a peculiar air of mystery. She noted that the first Buddhist monastery of Tibet was built here in the eighth century; construction began in 763. Samye was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt after 1988, so today's buildings are not what she saw.

After Samye she crossed the Brahmaputra near Tsetang, where the valleys of the Yarlung open out. She found the country famous for its places of pilgrimage. Tsetang, in the Yarlung Valley about 183 km southeast of Lhasa, was the capital of the Yarlung region since antiquity and the seat of Tibet's ancient emperors.

Location precision: The book names the crossing only as near Tsetang; the pin marks the town.

Exhausted, without money and in rags, she and Yongden were taken in for a fortnight at the Macdonald home in Gyantse, once considered the third largest town in Tibet. Under a treaty, a British trade agent and garrison had been stationed there. Macdonald lent her 500 rupees, and with his help she managed to reach northern India through Sikkim.

Location precision: The sources name the town, not the house; the pin marks Gyantse.