Hansen´s Travels

THE BIRD MAN AND THE LAP DANCER: Close Encounters With Strangers by Eric Hansen. The intrepid San Francisco-based traveler, author of Orchid Fever, can spin a good yarn, knowing how to go beyond the externals of exotic and not-so-exotic locations to get to the heart and soul of a place.

Stranger in the Forest - Eric Hansen was the first Westerner to make the perilous crossing of the island jungles of Borneo. Befriended by the Penan rainforest tribe - who catch fish with their feet - he hunted pigs, discovered eye-watering sex aids, and was ceremonially named King of the Moustache; more profoundly, he ´came face to face with myself in the patch of the map marked Unsurveyed´. Here is a true traveller´s tale, a deeply memorable portrait of a little-known corner of our world.

Motoring with Mohammed - It was a terrifying storm that left Eric Hansen and his four companions shipwrecked on a deserted Red Sea island. Rescued by smugglers and taken to the Yemeni coast, Hansen was enthralled by this little-known land, intrigued by its customs, charmed by its natural beauty and captivated by its people - from qat-chewing mystics to gun-smuggling goatherds and mind-boggling bureaucrats. Evocative and irreverent, affectionate and absurd, here is a journey through one of the world´s least understood countries by one of its finest travel writers.