True Tales from Borneo to Japan
A personal message from the author:
I cut my teeth on exploring the last forgotten places on earth as a Peace Corps volunteer in Gabon, which inspired my novel “Water Drumming in the Soul: A Novel of Racy Love in the Heart of Africa.” Now with “Asian Trail Mix: True Tales from Borneo to Japan” I deliver with a journalist’s gimlet eye and a novelist’s depth the nether reaches of Kalimantan — both Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo — and if that weren’t enough braved the best preserved rainforest of Asia by trekking across Thailand’s second largest island, Koh Chang. In this essay compilation I deliver on a treasure trove of Asia, from Chinese astrology via the essay “A Fortune Told” to the postmodern present with “Doctor Robopet.” And Laos, Singapore, Japan … all there on the Asian trail blazed splendidly for you. Experience it.
— Eric Madeen
Mixing it up on the Asian trail …”So I get up at dawn … marveling at fog burning off into mist tumbling down like the finest mosquito netting of silk … The hills beyond the confluence, like shoulders of a woman undressing, the way the shroud of mist lifts off feminine curves, higher and higher … I tingle all over, feeling there on Borneo the dream tug of Joseph Conrad’s fiction.” By turns pathbreaking and intimate, this smorgasbord of travel essays scales down the sprawl of Asia by focusing on the unique and revelatory in sharp, crisp prose. See up close and personal the razzmatazz of novice monks at play in northern Laos, the hustle of pedicab drivers in Ho Chi Minh City, the rainforests blazed on gutsy treks across Borneo and Thailand’s Elephant Island …Served up nice and spicy, Asian Trail Mix is travel at its most sumptuous. Snack on it!