Ella Maillart was a Swiss writer, photographer, sportswoman and traveler. Her works chronicle her expeditions during the 1930's and 1940's to such remote regions, as Russia, Turkestan, Manchuria, Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Ladakh, Yemen, South Korea, China, southern India and Nepal. In her lifetime, Ella also was a journalist and lecturer. She wrote a large number of articles and lecture scripts on her travels, on sports events and other issues.
Background
Ella Maillart was born on February 20, 1903, in Geneva, Switzerland. She was a daughter of Paul Klim, a furrier, and Dagmar Klim, who was fond of sports and took Ella each Sunday to the mountains to ski.
In 1913, the family moved to the lakeside village of Creux-de-Genthod, not far from Geneva.
Education
At the age of seventeen, Ella gave up school to study privately in order to try to discover what career was calling her. She realized, that earning her own living was her only route to independence, but envied those, who knew, what they wanted to do, not having any idea herself. Her private studies failed, but undaunted, she embarked on a six-month voyage with another woman along the south coast of France. On her return, her father told her, that, as business was bad, she must think further about a career. She decided, that the answer to her future lay in turning her life into a continual holiday.
Career
Ella left home at the age of twenty and became a well-known figure among yachting society of the Mediterranean region, cruising in vessels, ranging from a three-ton Perlette to a 125-ton Insoumise — often with an all-woman crew. In 1924, Maillart participated in the Olympic games in Paris as a member of the Swiss sailing team and captained the Swiss field hockey team in 1931. As a skier, Maillart competed for Switzerland in FIS races during the early 1930's.
In 1930, Ella embarked on the first of her extended trips abroad with a six-month visit to Russia. Maillart chronicled her experiences in her first book, "Parmi la jeunesse russe", which was published in 1932, the same year, when she traveled to Turkestan for another six-month excursion. This trip resulted in the 1934 volume "Des monts Célestes aux sables Rouges", translated into English in 1935 as "Turkestan Solo: One Woman’s Expedition from the Tien Shan to the Kizil Kum".
By far, the most famous of her many expeditions, however, was the seven-month trek from Beijing to Kashmir she made in 1935 with a fellow-traveller and Times of London correspondent — Peter Fleming. The pair, who each preferred solo expeditions, were compelled to travel together due to political unrest in the region and open fighting in the areas, dominated by warlords. In addition to the uncertainty, caused by political activities in the territory, the hardships of the journey itself included travelling a distance of approximately 3,500 miles on foot, camel, yak, or horseback and through the desert, swamp and mountainous regions. Maillart and Fleming each chronicled the journey in separate volumes — his work was titled "News from Tartary" and her volume was published under the title "Oasis interdites: de Pékin au Cachemire: une femme à travers l'Asie centrale" in 1935. The English translation, which was published in 1937 and reissued in 1983, is titled "Forbidden Journey — from Peking to Kashmir".
In 1937, Ella crossed India, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to make some reports and then, in 1939, she left for Geneva and later for Kabul with Annemarie Schwarzenbach.
Ella Maillart spent the years of the Second World War in India. She settled in Tiruvannamalai, south of Madras, near the ashram of Ramana Maharishi, a teacher and wise man, who was "liberated during his lifetime", as they say in India. She also followed the teachings of Atmananda (Krishna Menon) in Kerala. These spiritual masters taught her "the unity of the world".
In 1946, on her return to Europe at the end of the war, Ella settled down at Chandolin, in the Val d'Anniviers in the Swiss Alps, where she would henceforth spend six months a year. In 1948, she built her chalet, called Atchala, in memory of Arunatchala, the sacred hill, overlooking the ashram of Ramana Maharishi. At that time, she was happy: for the first time, Ella could call a house her own. But soon, she said, the call of new adventures was too strong.
In 1951, Ella traveled to Nepal. For the next thirty years, from 1957 till 1987, she organized cultural tours to various Asian countries, taking small groups of tourists to wherever, in her company, there was still something to be discovered. To her travel companions, she liked to say: "Ask yourself unceasingly "Who am I ?" And through this constant query, you will come to know, that you are the Light of Consciousness".
Maillart extended her travels over the course of her life. Highlights included a motor trip through Afghanistan, which served as the basis of her 1947 volume "The Cruel Way: Two Women and a Ford in Afghanistan", and a 1965 trip to the base of Mount Everest.
During the last decades of her life, Ella Maillart felt increasingly concerned about the environmental problems, that face the Earth, which she so deeply admired.
In her 80's, Ella visited Tibet for the last time and travelled to Goa on the west coast of India in her last foreign excursion in 1994. In 1991, the pictorial essay "La vie immediate" was published, bringing new recognition of the artistic and documentary value of her photographs, a selection of which were exhibited in Paris in 1993.
Views
Quotations:
"You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself."
"It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better."
"We must develop a deeper interest and greater understanding of the people we meet here or abroad. Like us, they are passengers on board that mysterious ship called life."
"The wideness of the horizon has to be inside us, cannot be anywhere but inside us, otherwise what we speak about is geographic distances."
"When I look at something, it is certain that for an instant I am one with what I see."
"One of the main points about travelling is to develop in us a feeling of solidarity, of that oneness without which no better world is possible."
"I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch."
"One travels so as to learn once more how to marvel at life in the way a child does. And blessed be the poet, the artist who knows how to keep alive his sense of wonder."
"The benefits of the accomplished journey cannot be weighed in terms of perfect moments, but in terms of how this journey affects and changes our character."
"One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm."
"Travel can also be the spirit of adventure somewhat tamed, for those who desire to do something they are a bit afraid of."
Membership
Ella was a member of different societies and clubs, including Alpine Club, Ski Club of Great Britain, Royal Geographical Society, Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Club des Explorateurs, Paris.
Moreover, at the age of sixteen, Ella became the founder of the first women's field hockey club in French-speaking Switzerland — the Champel Hockey Club.
Personality
Even as a child, Ella adored reading maps and adventure books.