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Product Description
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.
Ingram
With these beautifully evocative and brilliantly irreverent memoirs of a shipwreck on an island in the Red Sea, and the quest ten years later for the travel journals buried there, Hansen introduces a forgotten corner of the Middle East. "Mr. Hansen is a first-rate writer."--The New Yorker.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exellent & Informative light read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea (Paperback)
This book has anything you might expected from a traveller to experience.The author give a very lively description on the places he traveled in.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most engaging books I've ever read,
By
This review is from: Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea (Paperback)
I read this book nearly at one sitting, literally sitting, up in bed one night when I should have been sleeping. Four or five times I awakened my husband, shaking the bed with my laughter, especially when Mohammed moved a sheep into the back seat of his taxi for the next five days, saying, "The sheep won't mind."Eric Hansen has scored with this book, and I've recommended it to probably 40 people and given it as a gift to 5-6. Read it and enjoy in - on many levels.
4.0 out of 5 stars
If this area of the world interests you...,
By Oksana (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea (Paperback)
Hansen's STRANGER IN THE FOREST is one of my favorite travel adventure books of all time. I found ORCHID FEVER fascinating and funny, albeit too short, but MOTORING W/ M, his earliest tome is just not as well-written as the others. Sometimes the descriptions are lacking and sometimes the narrative isn't easy to follow, probably because Hansen doesn't know where his quest will take him. I found his adventures interesting, the lack of sanitation in Yemen, and his ability to deal with it, amazing... but I found myself wondering how he managed to eat in squalid "restaurants" and never become ill? Since he doesn't detail his health, but details the filth, it was an area I wanted to know about. His trek into the mountains, without a permit, and his run-ins with the Yemeni military were fascinating and frightening, but ultimately, I found his final journey to the island, where he'd buried his journals years before, unsatisfying because he rushes through the final adventure and doesn't detail the actual dig. 200+ pages of Yemeni history, culture and adventure and then a few scant paragraphs on the finale of his eight year quest left me feeling he'd written more about it and it also made me realize how much he's improved as a travel writer... Hansen is still one of the best.
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