Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo

by Eric Hansen

Outfitted with a pair of ratty sand shoes and a knapsack full of trade goods, Eric Hansen set off to cross the rainforest of Borneo, one of the last places on earth largely untouched by Western civilization. For seven months Hansen hunted wild pig, gathered roots, and lived among tribes whose longhouses were still decorated with the headhunting swords of their ancestors, completing one of the great adventures of our time.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Adventure, Memoir, Asia, Nature, Anthropology

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Eric Hansen is a travel writer, most famous for his book Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo, about a 4,000 km trek through the heartland of Borneo. He lives in San Francisco. For 25 years he has traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Nepal, and Southeast Asia.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Hansen's memoir of his travel across the wilds of Borneo. In 1983, hardwood timber prices had just doubled twice in 3 years, and there was significant felling underway on the coastal perimeters, but it had not yet pushed its way inland and to the highlands. On the best map he could find, Hansen found large blank areas, with the words 'insufficient reliable relief data available'. These were located on his planned route.

His goal, was to travel from Sarawak on the West Coast, across the highlands to the East Coast and the Celebes Sea. He had a lot of preparations to make, and some false starts. Leaning the trade goods appropriate for his journey, learning the language, understanding the culture, were all equally important.

His journey is told relative simply, and honestly. He introduces the tribesmen and women he travels or temporarily settles with well, his writing conjures the images, and picks up on the character traits well. For me, it makes compelling reading.

Its not spoiler, as it is signalled on the dust jacket, but 137km into his journey, a mere days journey from the Celebes Sea, Hansen falters. He stops walking, and has a realisation. He can be back in San Francisco in under a week - but he realises he isn't ready to go home. He stops his eastward journey, and heads back to the west. He decides to undertake the return journey to Sarawak.

I have a particular compulsion to read books on Borneo. For me it was always a exotic destination I wanted to travel to - jungles, headhunters, longhouses, semi-nomadic tribes living an almost stone-aged existence. Many of those iconic images we conjure up are no longer, destroyed by the three-pronged pressure of hardwood logging, palm oil plantations and missionaries. For me there is no one of three worse, or better than the others. I did manage some travel in Borneo over the years - nothing as ambitious as Eric Hansen of course, but I did manage to visit a handful of the places he spent time and writes about in this book. For me it was fascinating to read about how they were, and to know what had changed at the time I was there. I dread to think how they have further changed now.

Bario, in the highlands was the most poignant for me to read about. In his epilogue, Hansen is lamenting the progression of logging roads in Borneo generally - bulldozers giving access for the logging trucks. He mentions in passing that "the network of roads expands closer to the highlands of Bario". By the time I was there, the road was not only formed, but there was a contract underway to widen and seal the road to Bario.

Great book, 5 out of 5 for me.

Edit: 29/12/16 - Best Travel Non-Fiction read of 2016.

[Numidica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best wilderness travel / indigenous people encounter book I have ever read, hands down. Eric Hansen had the experience of a lifetime in walking across Borneo in 1982, and his descriptions of how the Penan and other indigenous people of the forest treated him, and how they made a living in the jungle is uplifting and eye-opening. At one point, Hansen runs into a researcher at a village where he stays for about a week, and she has done a tally of all the plants and fungi the Penan people use for food and other purposes; her list of species run to 233, and it is likely incomplete. The author experienced this cornucopia with his guides in the rainforest; every day they would venture out after making camp and return with game, nuts, greens, fungi or some combination thereof. Hansen tells how there was often so much food that he could barely eat it all - the rainforest was the tribes' "farm", and it provided meals every day of the year - for those who carried in their heads the knowledge of its gifts. The guides knew from memory all the plants in the forest: what nuts or fruits were in season, which plants or fruit were poisonous, which had medicinal value, etc. They also knew hundreds of forest routes by memory, whereas, as Eric says, if he had taken three steps off the trail, he literally might have never found his way out of the jungle, especially during his first month in the forest.

With one exception, when he was mistaken for a forest spirit (a bali saleng), he was well-received at each village where he stopped, with courtesy that varied in warmth but was always generous, and some of his stays resulted in real friendships. He learned to be respectful, to approach questions obliquely, to be endlessly patient, and to pitch in and help in whatever way he could. He learned to leave behind his American ideas of how to behave, and to remain humble, and by doing so he found acceptance by the Penan. Crime was almost non-existent in the longhouse communities; his guides wondered aloud to him about the crimes they heard of in the coastal communities, and when Eric asked his guides what they considered one of the worst crimes they had encountered in their own village, they thought for a moment and then replied, stinginess.

Only as he approached the "civilized" coast did the welcomes degrade a bit, or at least become much more variable, and he had to be more careful. If the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia had had more foresight in the 1980's they would have set aside all the then-remaining rainforest as a national treasure, and sought resources from NGO's and the UN to protect the incredible biodiversity of the interior of Borneo. Sadly, that is not the way it has gone; since 1982, the extractive and ruthless logging industry has destroyed at least 25% of the forest Hansen walked through, and today the Penan are under siege trying to retain their remaining forests, which are their livelihood. Borneo has somewhere between 2500 and 3000 tree species, and the tallest tropical trees in the world live there with individual specimens greater than 300 feet tall. By comparison, all of Europe has about 500 tree species. It is the immense biodiversity of the forest in Borneo that provides the wealth of food, tools, and medicine to the Penan.

I have done a little hiking in tropical forests in Honduras and the Caribbean, and a lot of hiking in the US, and I completely related to Eric Hansen's ultimately comical description of trying and failing to keep his footing on muddy slopes in the rainforest, while his guides smiled and helped him up time and again. After weeks of unintentionally providing comic relief for his guides, he began to get the knack of finding toeholds in steep slopes, and ultimately he became confident enough to travel alone - which caused other problems.

His descriptions of the dark and cool rainforest are wonderful, replete with the sounds of birds, visions of hundreds of orchids in gaps in the forest, monkeys with their greeting-the-dawn choruses, pigs that climbed trees, and more. His sense of wonder translates beautifully and compellingly to the page. Highly recommended.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a marvelous and unique travelogue of a young American who goes way outside his cultural milieu and treks for many months in the jungles of Borneo. He really goes “native” and lives in small villages and eats their food. He trades, among other objects, chewing tobacco and shotgun casings to have native guides for long journeys through the jungle where they subsist by hunting wild pigs and deer. The author adapts to this entirely new lifestyle – like sleeping constantly on the jungle ground with mosquito netting and making campfires (I would never ever be able to even approach this as I love my morning coffee and a warm bath at the end of the day). The days would pass without a structure – if there was good hunting not much progress would be made. Each day would merge into the next. The writing captures vividly his new approach to jungle living and the different tribes he encounters.

The author gives us details of village life and also the mistakes he made and the adjustments required during his extraordinary journey. As the events in this book took place during the early 1980’s I imagine that life has changed drastically. There were already incursions of the 20th century along the coast of Borneo which were impacting the various native people.

This is an extraordinary narrative loaded with adventures and encounters which are described with passion and feeling by the author. It is an exceptionable and memorable book.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1982, Hansen traveled across Borneo once and then turned around and did it again. He recorded his experiences in a 500-page journal that eventually resulted in this book. It is clear that he fell in love with the native people and the rainforest in which they lived. Sadly, much of the forests have since been cut down by logging interests and replaced with Palm Oil farms. Hansen’s account is filled with adventures and keen observations that harken back to a previous age.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Eric Hansen traveled to Borneo in 1982, he was hoping to revisit people and places of his trip 6 years earlier. What he found reminded me of the John Pryne song about Paradise, KY “Mr. Peabody’s coal train just hauled it away”; In this case it was the timber industry.

The people who once lived by farming, fishing and trade were now adjusting to their clear cut land and the outside world that came with it. Hansen’s search for the longhouse when he attended wildest party ever (this has to be read – as arak flows, a rooster is used for “party jokes” and a person is tied to a tree with vines until he sobers up) was complicated by this new market based economy. Tourists paid more than he could for boats and guides to take simple day trips, so guides were not interested in long trips into risky waters.

Hansen prepared for what the blurb says is a 1500 mile trek across Borneo, primarily on foot by honing Malay and Indonesian language skills and digesting as many maps as he could find. He gathered knowledge of the local culture from library resources and his own trial and error. With good health and technical skills, ranging from fixing tape players to airplanes, he set out into the jungle.

Hansen is a keen observer of the people (mainly of the Penan and the Kenyah tribes) and himself as a “modern” person living among them. He can be thinking of potential accidents or disease, paperwork for crossing borders, or making time to get to a location while his guides think only of hunting and finding a place to sleep. In remote parts of rain forest, he sees the trappings of the outside world: a camera (presumably Polaroid), a typewriter, treadle sewing machine, etc.

His writing is so good that after months of sharing the hunting gathering life, injuries with no medicine, no one to really relate to you can be as disappointed as he when he meets the withholding missionaries but is totally thrilled with their sink and chocolate chip cookies.

The end is very dramatic. You see the effort and risks jungle dwellers will make/take to go to the city and take their chances on jobs that will yield a subsistence wage.

I’m trying to think back to a better travel book, not only in the uniqueness of the trip, but also the ability of the writer. "Walking the Nile" and "An African in Greenland" come to mind, indicating the most interesting travelogs (for me) are by those who go on foot.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1982, Eric Hansen - who must have then been no more than 27 or 28 (?) - walked (that's right.... walked) across and through the tropical rainforests of Borneo... sometimes with native guides, but sometimes by himself. He spent months in the rainforest. Then, when he was 50 miles from from the east cost of Kalimantan, he suddenly (and impulsively) turned around and trekked back to Sarawak. This book describes this fascinating journey. The author is an intelligent and unpretentious man. Especiallly interesting are his descriptions of the forest itself, which is vivid, and his marvelous tales about the Penan and about the Kenyah in Apo Kayan. A fine and worthwhile book.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric Hansen had been fascinated by Borneo since he was a young child. As an adult, he decided to take a trip into the unknown. This is an amazing story of a relatively unprepared individual heading off into the forest in the manner of an old-time adventurer. He spent five months traveling across Borneo in 1982. It is a story of adventure and one of getting to know the culture and customs of the region. He had to rely on the indigenous peoples for assistance, and the Penan in particular. He brought items for trade and found shotgun cartridges especially valuable.

As he travels, he becomes increasingly immersed in the lifestyle of the forest and jungle. His journey is filled with obstacles and dangers most of us will never encounter. It is hard for me to imagine getting used to leeches attaching to the body, or some of the unfamiliar foods he needs to eat. The account provides details about the geography, flora, fauna, and the people. For the most part, he was accepted and assisted, though in one case he feared for his life due to the superstitions a group who started to suspect he was an evil spirit.

Hansen was fortunate to experience Borneo before the destruction of the forests inhabited by the Penan people. Of course, these actions are being done by corporations in search of profit. Hansen covers a bit of this change in his Epilogue. This book is an important record that documents the waning days of an ancient way of life, and to add to the enjoyment, it is very well written. The author provides vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and perils of traveling in the jungle. The final adventure where he finds his way up a river and over a mountain with a group of indigenous people who became his friends is remarkable.

4.5

[Steve Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great travel story. I really enjoyed it. I have to admire the man's courage and perseverance, I did some treks in Malaysia in the 70's and though this book reminded me vividly of my own experiences once past the purvey of the "white man" my excursions were no where near as ambitious as his. I was particularly touched by his description of the close connection of these so called primitive peoples with their environment and their felt sense of what was happening around them, both in their surrounding environment and in their contacts with others.

I have spent years working to free myself from the bondage of intellect in favour of a deeper felt sense of my life experience and it is a hard road. The constant reassertion of the sense of separate self is frequently troublesome. It says something about our culture that we are so alienated from who we are as human beings that the constant ebb and flow, the current of life for these people seems somehow strange to us. The value of what we hold dear in our livescan be seen clearly in this book by comparison between the life of those in the forest and those touched by our so called civilization. The absolutely destructive and evil agency of Christian missionaries glares out from these pages just confirming me in the anathema with which I hold these people and all their doings. The closely intertwined lives of the jungle dwellers with their environment and its spirits and the framework of existence that imposes makes much more sense in every way than the patronizing gobble dee gook that Christians spout as a faith that must be followed on pain of eternal damnation. I despair that the places where a person can have experiences like that outlined in so captivating a manner in this book are now almost non existent. The plastic west, bags, bottles and Jesus are everywhere!

[Missy J · Rating 5 out of 5]

We moved farther into this steaming, fetid world of great horrors and indescribable beauties whose elements were impossible to separate one from the other; and, as I learned, there was little sense in making simplistic distinctions of "good" and "bad".

Eric Hansen is one crazy adventurer. Since he was young, he dreamed of exploring the rain forest. In the 80s, a twenty-something Hansen finally made his way to Borneo and tried to trek further inland. His first two months in Sarawak were not very fruitful. He injured himself and was unable to reach the hinterland by boat. However it wasn't time wasted. During this time, he became more fluent in Malay, learned about how the people in the jungle trade and their way of thinking. His third expedition to Bario and then crossing over to Kalimantan was a success. By that time, he had adapted to the life in the rain forest. When he almost reached the eastern coast of Kalimantan, he quickly turned around and headed back into the rain forest. He spent a couple more months exploring the rain forest before making his way back into Sarawak and civilization.

Hansen came into close contact with two tribes in particular - the Penan and Kenyah tribes. The lives led by these tribes in the rain forest is utterly fascinating. They work closely together and share everything. That's because they live in such a remote area that they have to be dependent on themselves. They do not measure time or map out their surroundings. Their knowledge of the rain forest is all in their head. And they love hunting (vegetarians may squirm at some of the descriptions)! When Hansen visited and stayed in several villages, he was surprised to find out that prostitution, homosexuality and rape did not exist there. When he described to them life in the city, it was difficult for them comprehend "private property" and "hoarding things for oneself only". For the people in the rain forest, stinginess is the worst possible crime.

However, the outside influences were already starting to shadow over these remote areas. Hansen met some tribe's men who were willing to leave their families for a couple of years to work along the coast. They would bring back a variety of modern goods to the rain forest. Often these men would be tempted by what was offered in the city and would easily fall into debt. Missionary groups were active in the rain forest and would provide airlift services to transport goods. If a certain village didn't obey the missionaries, they would punish the village by abruptly putting a stop on the airlift services. People in the village would suffer greatly because they already relied on the comforts of quick delivery, sugar, batteries, etc. Without a plane, a jungle trek to the coast would've taken six weeks at least.

Another dark side Hansen learned about the people in the rain forest was their susceptibility to superstitions. In one village, word got around that an evil spirit in the form of a white man was roaming the jungle in search of human blood for sacrifice. Hansen encountered a lot of difficulties because of this in the second half of his adventure.

This account is from the 80s, and I get wary thinking of how things must have changed even more since that time. There's so much wisdom we can actually learn from people who live so close to nature. Yet, the system labels them as "primitive" and dictates that they have to "get along" with modern times. So much wisdom will and is already lost. Hansen wrote a great book which in the future can be treated as a historical document.

"Keep your money. You can print money, but you can't print land. We want our land."

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hansen's tale of his trek through Borneo is absorbing, especially as he comes to grips with his own inadequacies along the journey. Relying (one might almost say at the mercy of) native guides, he's initially almost unable to cope. His gradual adjustment to the jungle is what makes this account so compelling.

Like Redmond O'Hanlon's No Mercy, this is an account of a spiritual as well as physical trek. (Although this is nowhere nearly as dark a travelogue as O'Hanlon's, I'm happy to say.) Hansen learns from his guides as he progresses, and his admiration for their jungle skills is obvious. His gradual mastery of a complex bartering system and a wealth of survival lore make for fascinating reading. Sadly, I'm sure that Borneo has changed for the worse since Hansen's day, and that the modern world has encroached considerably on both native cultures and the environment.

When Hansen returns to "civilization" he finds himself loathe to resume his life as he'd led it before, and the reader understands why he turns around and goes back into the jungle. Hansen is a skilled narrator, and this is wonderful armchair traveling.

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot believe that this book is classified as "travel/adventure".
Until I read it, I might have thought it a correct shelf designation. Now, my shelf designation might be: "life and death in Borneo", "is this guy crazy?", "less than forty years ago?" "ewe, bee pupa soup", "2400 miles in one pair of running shoes!", or "blow pipes and bamboo spears, oh my!"

It is unfair to Bill Bryson, but I kept thinking about him walking along the trails in the eastern United States, stopping to make camp, and cooking dinner each time Eric Hansen discussed his adventure for the day. I know! It sounds crazy, but I had nothing else to compare it against. Eric's amazing story of what he went through during a day's walk on the trails in the wilds of Borneo in the mid 1980s is an eye opening account of one man's endurance, hardship, and suffering, along with beauty, discovery, friendship, and accountability. I will never forget it.

[Jibralta · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've ever read. The author treks across Borneo (with two indigenous guides) in 1978, before the rainforest was destroyed by Chinese palm oil plantations. The book is so well-written you actually feel like you're on this journey. Hansen lives & eats as his guides do. After a few weeks, due to the soft light of the rainforest, he begins to see colors he's never seen before. Hansen & his guides cook & eat huge grubs (surprisingly tasty), scorpions (like lobster). Hansen's greatest difficulty is getting used to moving his bowels within eyesight of his guides; who're insulted that he walks away & hides in the brush to go to the bathroom. The adventure is thrilling & mysterious. Due to Hansen's appearance, one tribe sees him as a great MYTHICAL threat. A truly frightening experience. GREAT TRAVEL ADVENTURE.

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

best travelogue ever. I've been through this one like 4 times. all of the fun with none of the ethnocentric bs i've found in other travelogues that cover the late 70's early 80's. Once you're in, it's impossible to stop. even as i write this, I'm trying hard not to walk over to my book shelf and to start reading this. that good.

[Tim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

_Stranger in the Forest_ by Eric Hansen is easily one of the most absorbing and well-written travelogues I have ever read. This extraordinary book chronicles Hansen's remarkable journey across the island of Borneo in 1982. The author traveled some 2,400 miles on the island, largely on foot and through tropical rain forest on an island that straddles the equator; actually he made two trips, traveling four months and 1,500 miles before turning around and going back across the island, a mere 50 miles from the ocean (to the astonishment of his traveling companions and shouts of "Crazy man!").

Writing of his childhood imaginations about exotic and faraway jungles and his own later adult fantasies after spending hours in the library reading about the island, Hansen found he had a lot to learn about the realities of Borneo. Emboldened by an earlier visit to the island in 1976, his first attempts to penetrate the interior and reach the highlands and meet real forest nomads - the "jungle of my library fantasies" - met with continual frustration. For over eight weeks he went up one river after another, sometimes getting as much as 70 miles before being stymied by dishonest guides, insufficient amounts of gasoline for the outboard motors, or unfriendly villages, which would often price gouge Hansen, charging exorbitant rates for simple services and fail to provide him the necessary guides to proceed further on foot. The trade goods he bought generally did not interest the locals, Hansen found it hard to interact in the non-monetary economy of the interior, and even his Western manners were a source of problems (it took the author a while to realize direct questions were quite rude in many situations and would not likely produce the answers or results he sought).

Retreating to the coast, Hansen reevaluated his trip and had the very good fortune of becoming friends with Syed Muhammad Aidid, a man in Marudi, Malaysia. This businessman, familiar with both the ways of both the West and the jungle interior, took Hansen under his wing, teaching him the complex economic system of the highlands and jungle. The author learned that an empty, 8-ounce tin of sweetened condensed milk was the standard unit of measure and was called a mok, with all other volumes being calculated in multiples of 1 mok (for example, 3 moks of dry rice equal one day's rice for a man). He learned of valuable, light-weight items to bring to trade for food and services, items like sugee (Lombek chewing tobacco), manik-manik (colored seed beads used for decoration), and in particular shotgun shells (1 shell equal to one day's labor for a man or if caught - as they were illegal - 1 year in jail). He also learned of valuable items he could procure in villages for trade later, such as gaharu, a local wood with concentrations of aromatic sap, favored in Asian medicine and in the Middle East for making incense and perfume.

With Muhammad Aidid's help, Hansen was soon on his way back into the interior, paying his guides with wages made up of shotgun shells, manik-manik, and sugee. He managed to secure guides for his particularly successful first half of his trip with two Penan men, John Bong and Tingang Na; being his first guides, they were vital in his become proficient on the island. Communicating in bahasa pasar, a basic form of modern Malay that is the trade language of Sarawak (the Malaysian side of the island) and Kalimantan (the Indonesia side) - and later on in Indonesian with other guides - Hansen spent four weeks with these two guides before reading the Kelabit highlands (where he spent two weeks). These two guides (and after leaving the highlands, two other Penan guides, Bo `Hok and Weng) showed Hansen the ways of the rain forest; how to walk without tripping all the time, what plants and animals were good to eat and which were not, how to make camp for the night, how to hunt, and a great deal of tribal and jungle lore. The journey through the rain forest was portrayed in vivid prose and was extremely well-written. Hansen learned of many locally useful plants, such as akar korek (the "matches vine;" once lit, the dried vine smokes for days and is excellent for transporting fire), akar sukilang (a vine that can be beaten to a pulp and spread in water to stupefy fish, making them easy to catch), and most of all the sago palm (from which the Penan get their staple food, sago flour, which he was able to witness being made). He encountered many animals also; flying snakes and lizards, fire ants (with which he had an unfortunate encounter), flying foxes (which taste terrible), wild pigs (which taste excellent and are an important food source), gibbons, black hornbills (which come when called), and barking deer among others.

The star though of the book were the people of Borneo, both the settled tribal groups (of where there eleven, which included groups such as the Kelabit, Iban, and Kenyah), and the shy forest nomads, the Penan, true experts of the forest but uncomfortable in direct sunlight and in large communities. He had many excellent encounters with these people, as a number of them were friendly and generous, allowing him to participate in Gawai Antu, an Iban tribute to departed spirits, a time of much merry-making and drinking of large quantities of arak (a type of rough distilled spirit); learn about the peselai (the "long journey," undertaken by young men to seek status and gain coveted goods from the coast, a journey taking months or even years); watch blowpipes being made, and much more. He also had bad experiences; in addition to some gouging in some villages, during his second journey, when traveled alone for a time, he was feared by some villages of being a bali saleng, an evil and nearly invulnerable spirit that walked alone at night, seeking to get blood for magical ceremonies.

[Sam Elsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written account of one white man's experience trekking around Borneo. I enjoy the way he explains and portrays his insatiable desire for the unknown.

[Joris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A prime example of thrilling travel literature!

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A personal account of one man's journey on foot across Borneo and back... alone, Stranger in the Forest is a simple and direct memoir. Many things about the journey were distasteful, to say the least. From the beginning the author seems to have little regard for anyone but himself and his own entertainment as he traipses through the island in search of rare sights, like a tourist in the jungle. His self-admitted desire to witness a world in its natural state is countermanded by his own insistence on viewing everything through his own capitalistic cultural lens.

There are 4 different types of people who make these journeys: 1. Government agents and/or military 2. Missionaries 3. NGO Aid Workers and 4. Scientists or Nature Researchers. Eric was neither. He expresses disgust for each of those groups and doubts their motives. Yet, he is there for no man's benefit but his own. He seems quite disappointed that the Borneo natives expect to be hired and paid to help him on his journey. He wants them to help him as friends, out of some sort of nobility of soul, of which he himself seems lacking. He wants to trade goods to fund his trip, but chooses ammo for profit/weight ratio. And he is unconcerned when the ammo is used for massive hunts of endangered animals.

He admits himself to be not much more than a vagabond when sharing a quote that says that the vagrant owns the whole vast Earth. He reveals little about himself except that he resents civilization as another form of slavery. A survey of his work since shows him to be a reporter and a writer. I am not sure about what he was doing before the journey.

For the first third of the book I was thinking, 'This idiot is going to die in the jungle.' For the middle third I thought, 'Maybe the guy has learned a thing or two from this experience after all.' By the last third he has quite a bit of Insight into native life and customs, such as male body modification with wooden pins. As he points out, this is just the opposite of how many cultures require women to undergo painful surgeries of female circumcision and mutilation.

The book is well worth reading. I read this for my stop in Brunei, through which Eric travelled on the island of Borneo. Now I am in the Philippines on my Journey Around the World in 2019-2020.

[Roman Dial · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic

As a professor, reading for pleasure is not often an option for me. This book, however I have read many times.

I read it in my 20s after a professor gave it to me as a gift when I left the University of Alaska Fairbanks to pursue my PhD. I read it again in my 30s on my first trip to Kalimantan and in my 40s during a research stint in Sabah. It was then that my son read it, too, while with me at Danum Valley.

Cody Roman read it soon after reading another regional classic, Alfred Russel Wallace's The Malay Archipelago.

"Dad," he said, "Hansen seems to make some of the very same observations in almost the same language as Wallace. Listen how they each describes Chinese merchants...."

Both are great books, as informative now as during the centuries they were written. What Hansen did and the drama of how he did it, written in a very understated way, are superb examples of what pure adventure can be.

It's the kind of story a whole generation of us would like to write, and generations more have wanted to live.

[Lela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, interesting, enlightening, inspiring foot journey across Borneo! Makes me want to drop years & work on fitness then strap on walking shoes! Loved it!

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading adventure books, especially about places and cultures I am unfamiliar with. I am not sure where I found out about this book, but I put it on my “Want to Read” list awhile back as I had never read anything about the Island of Borneo. In this novel, the author in the 1980’s wrote about his experiences walking across this very large island and in the process, living like the native people. The back of the book has this description: “He became the first Westerner ever to walk across Borneo without benefit of technological devices, porters, or a caravan of provisions. With little more than a pair of running shoes, a knife, shotgun shells for barter, Hansen plunged into the jungle for ten months and 2400 miles of improbable encounters and breathtaking tales.”

This is a fascinating, well written story that really kept my interest all the way through. Hansen detailed all the logistics it took to make this trip happen; his errors in judgment, his successes as well as the courage it took to make himself vulnerable and alone. He notes the wonderful experiences as well as the not so wonderful. Much of the book is about the people he met and relied on along his journey. Mr. Hansen met and befriended various people from the Penan tribes; a mostly nomadic people who live in the rainforest. Without their assistance, his journey would not have happened. His descriptions of their way of life, belief system and relationships was truly eye opening.

Many interesting things happened to Mr. Hansen in this book, but one in particular stands out for me. While seated at a makeshift camp deep in the rainforest one evening, Mr. Hansen was eating a wild pig that he and his Penan guides had just killed, butchered and roasted over the fire. The forest was almost impenetrable due to very high, dense tree cover except for one small area open to the sky. As he ate, Mr. Hansen saw an airline fly high overhead and in his mind he put himself in that plane, looking down at a primitive scene of those three individuals and marveling that these two vastly different ways of life co-exist.

This book is about leaving the modern life and exploring a life far removed from privileges and luxuries; a way of life that has changed little for centuries, in an environment that can be harsh, dangerous but also beautiful and rewarding. He also notes that this way of life is rapidly changing as the rainforest is being logged for lumber and palm oil. The reader is left wondering what will happen to the nomadic life of these tribes, who have lived successfully from the rainforest for generations.

Five stars from me for a great read!

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very quick read full of interesting adventures. I would've loved color photo plates and some sections to be expanded but Hansen's attention to detail, sense of humor, and emphasis on human connections made this a memorable story.

My favorite section was about how every year a blood-stealing demon appears in a slightly different form. Due to Hansen's bad luck, that particular year the local gossip is that the demon takes the form of a white man traveling alone in the forest. He effectively captures the surreal and frightening experience of villagers thinking he is a dangerous monster. On a lighter note, I also liked the story of the man carrying a heavy sewing machine on his back home to his wife he hasn't seen for years.

I'm going to be visiting Sabah in Borneo soon and I expect it to be equally beautiful but also heartbreaking as the beginnings of deforestation trends that this book witnesses have only accelerated since then, with palm oil plantation replacing logging as the main cause of destruction.

[Kaitie · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I can see how people might love this book, it simply was not for me. I’m not a big nonfiction reader, and even less of a nature person. The book was easy to read, which was nice. And some of the stories were interesting! But overall I just never got into it. Also, the beginning and end seemed so abrupt? Like, why did he even want to walk across Borneo? What did he do when he got home? How did he finance this? I have so many other questions. Additionally, I had a hard time conjuring up images of what he was describing, and it wasn’t until I googled Borneo that I realized how gorgeous this journey probably was for parts of it. Overall, this story is very impressive and cool, it just wasn’t for me.

Note: read for my 2025 12 in 12 challenge

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always a bit of a gamble to pick up a memoir by a white man going somewhere to have an adventure. Eric Hansen does a fantastic job of immersing himself in the local culture, learning their language and customs, respecting his companions and forming meaningful friendships, rather than just telling us about it from a David Attenborough-like perspective.

He's also a fantastic storyteller, adaptable, resilient, funny and smart, which makes for a very enjoyable read.

[Kevin Zarling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Travel writing at its absolute best. A remarkable true story, very well told, of a truly extraordinary journey/adventure/experience.

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looove traveling, so naturally I love reading about it, too.
The main difference between me and Eric Hansen is not so much that he has managed to go to more exotic locations and write books about it (though that is one of the differences), the main point where we go on diverging paths is what we consider a n adventure. See, when I was in New Zealand I decided while backpacking around that I wouldn't book a place for the night of New Year's Eve and spend it on the beach to watch the sunrise instead. I thought this was a darn adventurous plan. When it started to rain in the afternoon I realized my plan was awful, I was all alone and close to despair. See, I panic over rain. Hansen spends months in the jungle with leeches crawling over him, wounds at his feet getting infected, tribes consider him an evil spirit and ponder on spearing him, he gets lost in high grass, so far so forth, and in the end he calls it a wonderful experience.
I got through my rainy, lonely new year feeling kind of proud over my 'adventure', yep, I am not quite up the league Hansen is in. Therefor I prefer reading about the more extreme journeys while in real life I journey on smaller scaled adventures. Thanks for writing such books, Mr. Hansen!

[Cat Chiappa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fabulous book and one of the best travel memoirs I've ever read, and I have certainly read my share. I appreciated the author's willingness to actually learn about all of the other cultures and he never mocked them for their beliefs. He had such an amazing adventure and it makes me sad to think of what the logging industry has done to Borneo.

The only two criticisms I had about the book was how dense it was...even though it isn't really a criticism. I found this book a little hard to pick up once I had put it down but whenever I read it I really enjoyed myself. The other thing I wish it had was an updated forward. It was written so long ago and I was really curious to hear what the author is up to now and what his take is on Borneo at this time. Did he ever go back? Does he have recommendations for people who want to experience Borneo?

Overall, this was an entertaining and deeply interesting anthropological delight.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a sucker for these reads. But I’ll be honest, they’re not all that well done. However, this is one of the most humane, interesting, detailed, and self-deprecating travelogues I’ve read.

Hansen isn’t trying to break any record, reach a particular geographical point, or win any contest. That type usually ends in either chest-thumping success or abject (and deadly) failure. There’s an objective to reach and the process of getting there (or not) is a source of either supporting or exculpatory anecdotes.

Hanson’s goal was just to have an experience and get to know the people of Borneo. He deliberately abandons his objective and returns to the forest to go back the way he came. He lets us get to know the people he meets and their ways of life. It makes for a fascinating, anthropologically-minded read.

[Peter Perhac · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a really good book, I could not, somehow, really enjoy it. It was well written, but Eric's adventure lacked aim/purpose and that made it difficult for me to get hooked. He was in no hurry to get anywhere, although at various times he was anxious to get away from a place immediately... he was just wandering from one place to another and enjoyed doing so.
I enjoyed reading about his adventure, and envied him the time he got to spend in almost complete isolation from the modern society just wandering around in the lush jungles of Borneo, but... Well, I expected more from it. I did LIKE the book, and it's difficult for me to give it just three stars (3.5 would be more appropriate), and I highly recommend it; still, I was not carried away by it as I was hoping I would be.

[Peter Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Eric Hansen had an incredible adventure and has an equally powerful way of telling it. Like "Catfish and Mandala" the first few pages tell you whether you will love this book or not. Hansen, a 6'6" U.C. Berkeley graduate (an older me!), studies Borneo's history, flora and fauna, learns the regional language, and opens his mind to a different way of thinking about time and the world. Consequently, his experiences in the jungle and with the people who inhabit it are nothing short of magical. His photographs are equally wonderful (starting with the cover!). The only fault I can find with this book is the curious font it was printed in. Italicized text is rather hard to read (for example, h's look like b's). All in all, this is a book to savor and cherish.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like books that can insert into the readers mind
a way of thinking that is utterly foreign. The
forest dwellers, viewed by westerners, are so
utterly clueless, yet, this traveler sets ripples
in motion in the forest that announce his presence
to all the inhabitants. Their measure of
'distance' from one location to another, is
actually measured in days. Beyond a few hundred
yards, our notion of distance is unfathomable to
them. There are no straight lines or predictable
rates of travel in their forest.
I wish I had the guts to have made such a trip--
I wouldn't be tempted now-- dont like the leaches
and mosquitoes and snakes.