The Naked Man Festival: And Other Excuses to Fly Around the World

by Brian Thacker

Kooky festivals of all shapes and sizes exist around the world, as illustrated by this humorous travelogue that recounts the dozen most outrageous celebrations the author discovered on his six-month, six-country adventure. In search of the most unusual and wildest festivities, the author was pelted with beans, amazed by giant snow cows, stampeded in a temple full of men wearing nothing but "nappies," befriended by alien abductees, and much more while attending a Hogmanay in Scotland, a Tomato Festival in Ripley, Tennesee, a Bean Throwing Festival in Tokyo, and a Vodou Festival in Haiti. The side-splitting stories will inspire readers to attend—or create—peculiar festivals of their own, and on a more serious note, explore and appreciate other cultures.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Humor

276 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Travel Author Brian Thacker was born in England, but he didn't like the weather so he immigrated to Melbourne, Australia when he was six. After many years working as an art director in advertising Brian worked as a tour leader escorting bus loads of drunk Aussies around Europe. That 'experience' became Brian's first book Rule No. 5: No Sex on the Bus (2001). Since then Brian has written six other books including Planes, Trains and Elephants (2002), The Naked Man Festival (2004), I'm Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck (2005), Where's Wallis? (2006), '2009 Travel Book of the Year' for Sleeping Around and Tell Them to Get Lost: Travels with the Lonely Planet guidebook that started it all (2011). Brian's books have been translated into German, Thai, Mandarin and Slovenian. So far he has visited 81 countries (82 if you count Tasmania).
Brian recently moved from Melbourne to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Reviews

[Melki]

"If a woman spies a naked man whilst she is planting seeds, suggestively shaped vegetables will be the result."

An old wives' tale, made up by me, an old wife.




Well, for starters...they're not naked. They wear a cross between a diaper and a G-string and the whole point of the thing is to fetch a stick. Oh, and watch out for the Yakuza. They do not play well with others.


Naked Man Festival, Okayama, Japan



Australian Brian Thacker spends an enjoyable year tripping lightly from festival to fete, partaking of local cuisine, local color and characters, and copious amounts of local beer. He proves to be an exuberant traveler, delighting in the little pleasures of life, like watching two women fight over a parking space. From spending Tet in Vietnam to attending a UFO Festival in, where else but Roswell, New Mexico, he is pleased to have you along on the adventure.



The world loves to celebrate and there are thousands of festivals held yearly. Nepal has a festival EVERY SINGLE DAY. Party on, Nepal! Thacker manages to be right in the thick of a lot of good times. His commentary and asides are pretty funny, as are his reasons for attending each event. For instance, he chose to celebrate Independence Day in Capitan, New Mexico because their parade "seemed to be entirely made up of fat people sitting on the backs of trucks waving American flags." As fun as he made it all sound, I'd much rather read about most of these shindigs than actually attend them, particularly the crazy-dangerous Voudou Festival in Haiti.

Other events featured in this book include:


Attendees attempt to catch their ages in beans at the Bean Throwing Festival, held each February in Tokyo.


Mardi Gras, Sydney, Australia.



A horde of Hemingways run with the bulls in Key West at the You-Know-Who Festival.

The author nicely finishes off the year by getting rubbered (Scottish word for drunk) and choking down some haggis to celebrate Hogmanay in Moffat, Scotland.


Haggis. Urp! I'd rather eat a Hemingway.

[Abby]

I don't really want to go to a Naked Man Festival, but some of the other things he does sounds interesting. I love travel books. Oooh! It makes me want to go somewhere real bad. Maybe I'll go to Walmart in the morning.

[Joanna]

The idea for this book was brilliant -- traveling around the world attending local festivals. Unfortunately, overall I found the author overly juvenile for my taste -- the continual discussion of where to get another drink and distaste for local food and culture started to wear on me well before the book was finished. Also, though the author seems to have eaten great meals, he didn't really describe them in a way that brought them to life for the reader, which is really the point of reading travelogues for me. His usual description went something like, Then I had char-grilled chicken with char-grilled bananas and it was the best chicken I'd ever eaten. Brilliant! But no sumptuous prose to bring it to life for the reader. I wouldn't really recommend this one given the myriad other humorous travelogues that are out there.

[Susetyo Priyojati]

This book recounts the author's rather extreme journey to hot spots around the world to participate in festivals, each with varying degrees of weirdness. As in his previous book "Elephant, etc.", he did some research on the topics at hand - but his information on the Islamic festival of Aid al Kabir (Idul Adha in common Indonesian parlance) is misleading. I'm not Muslim; but I'm quite sure my friends and relatives who are do not throw pieces of goat liver to the corners of every room at their homes. It's the sort of things you'd notice. And all the celebration on alcoholism is rather amusing, to put it politely. Still, 5 stars for his wit and guts.

[Rebecca]

I love this author! I read something else by him in the past and loved it, so when I saw a stack of more of his books at the library, I wanted to take them out so bad. Damn 5 book limit!!! But really, who is going to pick up a book with this title? It says it all and all his stories are really really funny. Not one of his better books, mainly because I am not really a festival type person, but still entertaining.

Grade: C

[Stacey]

Brian Thacker writes what I call "travelogues", a book of story travel(s). In this case each chapter logs a different festival.

Brian travels to 12 festivals in about 12 months from the Mardi Gras in Sydney to the Naked Man Festival in Japan to a voodoo festival in the Americas.

This is not high brow writing. But it is light and entertaining, and lends itself to sitting by the pool reading a chapter here or there...

[Agatha Donkar Lund]

Not as funny or engaging as Thacker's first book, Rule No. 5: No Sex On The Bus, but it had its moments. Recommended if you've read every other travel memoir in the world, which it sometimes feels like I've done.

[Indah Threez Lestari]

996 - 2014

Too many festivals in the world.