Vintage Departures
3 total works
Eric Hansen is an intrepid traveller with a keenly perceptive eye and an appreciation for the odd and unusual. He will go anywhere, try anything, and always manages to capture something remarkable in the doing. In this extraordinary book, Hansen writes about drinking mind-altering kava in Vanuatu, his heart-rending...Read more
Eric Hansen is an intrepid traveller with a keenly perceptive eye and an appreciation for the odd and unusual. He will go anywhere, try anything, and always manages to capture something remarkable in the doing. In this extraordinary book, Hansen writes about drinking mind-altering kava in Vanuatu, his heart-rending experience as a volunteer working amongst the poor and the dying in Mother Teresa's Calcutta sanctuary. He joins a grieving husband's search for his dead wife's wedding ring at a crash site in the Borneo rain forest, and recounts his own miraculous survival of Cyclone Tracy on a fishing boat off the north coast of Australia. He befriends an elderly Russian woman who prepared dinner for Balanchine and Stravinsky in her tiny Manhattan kitchen while drug-dealers were shot to death in the lobby below, spends time with an ornithologist studying the sex-lives of banana-slugs, and takes topless dancers on bird-watching expeditions. The best, most enduring travel writers don't invite readers to merely view vistas through other eyes, but take the trip further, deep into the psychology of place.
Hansen does just that in this lyrical collection that is equal parts travelogue, memoir and anthropological treatise. Over 30,000 copies sold of Orchid Fever International author tour First serial already sold as part of high-profile publicity campaign Point of sale and national advertising
Hansen does just that in this lyrical collection that is equal parts travelogue, memoir and anthropological treatise. Over 30,000 copies sold of Orchid Fever International author tour First serial already sold as part of high-profile publicity campaign Point of sale and national advertising
In 1978 Eric Hansen found himself shipwrecked on a desert island in the Red Sea. When goat smugglers offered him safe passage to Yemen, he buried seven years' worth of travel journals deep in the sand and took his place alongside the animals on a leaky boat bound for...Read more
In 1978 Eric Hansen found himself shipwrecked on a desert island in the Red Sea. When goat smugglers offered him safe passage to Yemen, he buried seven years' worth of travel journals deep in the sand and took his place alongside the animals on a leaky boat bound for a country that he'd never planned to visit.
As he tells of the turbulent seas that stranded him on the island and of his efforts to retrieve his buried journals when he returned to Yemen ten years later, Hansen enthralls us with a portrait -- uncannily sympathetic and wildly offbeat -- of this forgotten corner of the Middle East. With a host of extraordinary characters from his guide, Mohammed, ever on the lookout for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car, to madcap expatriates and Eritrean gun runners- and with landscapes that include cities of dreamlike architectural splendor, endless sand dunes, and terrifying mountain passes, Hansen reveals the indelible allure of a land steeped in custom, conflicts old and new, and uncommon beauty.
As he tells of the turbulent seas that stranded him on the island and of his efforts to retrieve his buried journals when he returned to Yemen ten years later, Hansen enthralls us with a portrait -- uncannily sympathetic and wildly offbeat -- of this forgotten corner of the Middle East. With a host of extraordinary characters from his guide, Mohammed, ever on the lookout for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car, to madcap expatriates and Eritrean gun runners- and with landscapes that include cities of dreamlike architectural splendor, endless sand dunes, and terrifying mountain passes, Hansen reveals the indelible allure of a land steeped in custom, conflicts old and new, and uncommon beauty.
Eric Hansen was the first westerner ever to walk across the island of Borneo. Completely cut off from the outside world for seven months, he traveled nearly 1,500 miles with small bands of nomadic hunters known as Penan. Beneath the rain forest canopy, they trekked through a hauntingly beautiful...Read more
Eric Hansen was the first westerner ever to walk across the island of Borneo. Completely cut off from the outside world for seven months, he traveled nearly 1,500 miles with small bands of nomadic hunters known as Penan. Beneath the rain forest canopy, they trekked through a hauntingly beautiful jungle where snakes and frogs fly, pigs climb trees, giant carnivorous plants eat mice, and mushrooms glow at night.
At once a modern classic of travel literature and a gripping adventure story, Stranger in the Forest provides a rare and intimate look at the vanishing way of life of one of the last surviving groups of rain forest dwellers. Hansen's absorbing, and often chilling, account of his exploits is tempered with the humor and humanity that prompted the Penan to take him into their world and to share their secrets.
At once a modern classic of travel literature and a gripping adventure story, Stranger in the Forest provides a rare and intimate look at the vanishing way of life of one of the last surviving groups of rain forest dwellers. Hansen's absorbing, and often chilling, account of his exploits is tempered with the humor and humanity that prompted the Penan to take him into their world and to share their secrets.