The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World . . . via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes [Paperback]

"The Lunatic Express," is a great title. The title alone drew me to this book. In Carl Hoffman's rogue travel memoir, Hoffman travels to countries in the third world by train, plane, boat, ferry, bus, car, truck, pedicab and taxi, taking on five continents in six months. The twist to his tale is that he travels as a local would--not as a Westerner would be expected to.

The countries he visits include Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil in South America; Tanzania and Kenya in east Africa; Mali and Senegal in west Africa; Indonesia, India and Bangladesh in south Asia; Afghanistan, China and Russia. Some countries are just a quick pass; in others he stays a longer time.

I liked this book because Hoffman brings into sharp focus values that traveling Westerners tend to take for granted: privacy and personal space; quiet; the expectation of safety; the expectation for a reasonable level of comfort. Hoffman is willing to give these up to experience separation and to live in the moment.

What nearly destroyed this book for me was the back story: Hoffman as a worldly, middle-aged man who regularly engages in "travel escapism," yet at the same time, wallows in whiny guilt and self-pity for doing so.

Of significance, Hoffman carries an omnipresent cell-phone that he uses with much frequency. So much for the genuine experience of travel separation. His cell-phone is as much an ersatz travel companion as his spouse, a child or a travel friend. On an "as-needed" basis, he makes use of first-world technology to "stay-in-touch" or to make hotel or other travel arrangements. At one point, he uses the cell phone to order Christmas presents for his family from half-way around the world.

The puppy-love affair with a young Western woman in New Delhi with whom he pals around for nearly three weeks is the one truly pathetic part of the narrative. At this juncture, it is obvious that Hoffman is depressed and lonely. During his time in New Delhi, he chooses to live in first-world digs. Unfortunately for the reader, this breaks up the adventure/angst of third-world travel. It is not that the reader wishes Hoffman to fall apart. However, Hoffman's back story is replete with fulsome hypocrisy that nearly destroys the good parts of this narrative.

And yet, I still recommend reading this book because there are compelling parts to his tale along with sparkle and keen insight into local culture and conditions. I especially enjoyed his ferry-travel journeys in Indonesia and Bangladesh. He is temporarily "adopted" by a ferry-board family as he travels to a remote outport in Indonesia. He writes..."the more I shed my American reserves, phobias, disgusts, the more they embraced me."

Hoffman experiences much kindness and outreach from total strangers in this and in other situations where there is no opportunity for him to reciprocate.

I worried that this was going to be kind of slim, like Sebastian-Junger-On-A-Risk-Tour, and kind of exploitative. But it's the opposite. It's like a really really long article from the Atlantic, or a series of articles, where you learn what life is like around the world, and how the many billions of people who do not live in the first world get around. There's plenty of fascinating risk-taking, yes (he hitchhikes through the gobi desert...in 38 degrees below zero weather; and takes a bus tour...in Afghanistan, while the war is going on!), but Hoffman is a highly empathic writer who makes you feel like you know what it is like to commute in India, or be a taxi driver in Kenya, or to ride an ancient wooden ferry in the Amazon. He has some great Harper's-type stats about risk levels, but he is most interesting when talking about what it means to be affluent (quiet and privacy, as well as safety, and liability laws, not to mention bathrooms in trains...), and showing what you only can learn about the world and what it means to be human by traveling on an Indonesian ferry, in steerage, for a week, with roughnecks on their way home from months in an oilfield.

In less talented hands, "The Lunatic Express" could have ended up condescending, maudlin, exploitive, or worst of all, dull. Fortunately, Carl Hoffman is far too good of a writer to allow this to occur. Instead, Mr. Hoffman has given us a book that, much like the world it describes, is complex, colorful, exciting, and never less than engrossing.

The underlying concept of the book is to experience modes of transportation around the world that would give safety inspectors the vapours. After reading these descriptions I will never again complain about beltway traffic. Yet Mr. Hoffman is never insulting. He implicitly recognizes that there are reasons for the way things are, and manages to imbue his descriptions with a sense of dignity.

This respectful approach extends to the many interesting individuals he encounters, both on and off the road. He celebrates their idiosyncrasies, but never becomes patronizing. These people emerge as fully-rounded characters who live in a world fundamentally different from our own.

And this world bursts from the book with brilliant realism. Mr. Hoffman straddles the boundary between prose and poetry, even when what is being described is sometimes terrifying. Indeed, there are sections of this book that are so vivid and exciting that the reader feels the need afterwards for a stiff drink. (Or at least some soothing tea.)

Further, like all good travel writers, Mr. Hoffman is able to express the personal impact of his travels in a way that is honest and never narcissistic. We get the sense that these travels have changed him, much as reading this book changes the reader.

For me, personally, this book is special because it made me fully appreciate that for millions of people daily life consists of a crowed and frantic maelstrom. It made me realize that the entire planet could be considered something of a Lunatic Express. And with this knowledge comes a greater respect and admiration for the world as a whole, and for individuals, like Carl Hoffman, who bring it to us.