On Foot Across Borneo
by Eric Hansen
Yes, it took me seven weeks to finish this 280 page book, but don't take that as significant. I left it at work and only read it during bathroom breaks.
So much you can experience in a solo travel through a jungle island in the 1980s. I was shocked when I looked back and saw the date of his travels--while reading, I fell into a "feeling" that this was happening in the middle of the twentieth century sometime. Say, 1952. NOT 1982--but so it was. As another reviewer points out, shotgun shells were his most valued trading commodity. Aeroplanes and sewing machines and telephones existed, but not a lot of people had seen them.
So much, as I say, and it's too much to mention. Jungle vistas, friendship, fear, really sore feet, storytelling over a camp fire built for smoke, not warmth (smoke to drive off insects), hunting with a spear, human greed and amazing human kindness. Get the idea? He was a true traveler--a sojourner--chooser of the road less traveled by. His journey will never be repeated.
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