The Naked Tourist

April 24, 2006
When a neighborhood is described as 'seedy' by some Lonely Planet
prude," Osborne (The Accidental Connoisseur
) declares, "I immediately head there." But even the boldest of travel writers can become jaded by visiting locales that have recreated themselves in romanticized "exotic" images, making one feel one is merely playing the role of a tourist rather than seeing anything new. So Osborne sets out to visit a tribe in Papua New Guinea that's had barely any contact with Westerners. Instead of heading straight for the jungle, however, he embarks on a lengthy trek along "the Asian Highway," clusters of tourist attractions that lead him through Dubai on to Calcutta and Bangkok. The story is strongest when Osborne drops the world-weary tone and simply engages with his surroundings: a hellish drive through Indian jungles, for example, or a whirlwind tour of Thailand's inexpensive medical centers. Once he fully abandons his comfort zone and plunges into the remote swamps of Papua, his encounter with the Kombai tribe is anticlimactic. Although he writes of the "shimmering hysteria" that came with stripping away nearly all vestiges of modern civilization, Osborne's account never fully embraces that vertigo, remaining just another well-crafted travel story.

June 1, 2006
-We -re flying to the most godforsaken place on earth. Compared to Wanggemalo, Wamena [Indonesia] is like Manhattan, - observes Osborne ("The Accidental Connoisseur") of a dense rain forest in Western Papua. Having an aversion to the homogeneity created by the global tourist industry, Osborne set off on a six-month journey to that remote part of New Guinea. En route he visited Dubai, the Andaman Islands, and Bangkok before meeting up with an adventure tour operator in Bali who took him and a few others on an expedition into Western Papua. While all the places Osborne visited are exotic, he manages to put a new spin on more familiar tourist haunts by focusing on some intriguing aspect of their culture, like the spa and cosmetic surgery facilities in Thailand. But the apogee of Osborne -s travels is reached in Western Papua, where he eats mouse hinds for breakfast with natives who have never seen a white man. As compelling as the narrative are Osborne -s literate ruminations on travel and the writings of anthropologists. This Bruce Chatwin readalike is highly recommended for armchair travelers." -Ravi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2006
Today's tourist, in Osborne's estimation, has too much money, undergoes too little education, possesses even less knowledge, and lacks completely the intellectual curiosity that makes travel compelling and rewarding. Osborne sets out across the globe, working his way east from Dubai through India and Thailand into remote areas of Papua New Guinea. In Dubai he surveys a money-obsessed society determined to remake a desert seafront into a sort of Islamic Disneyworld with manufactured sandy beaches on artificial islands. He finds Calcutta a ruined, failed city, still beset with Marxist idols. Bangkok caters boldly to carnal pleasures, and a trip to the hospital for some vaccinations uncovers a haven for sex-reassignment surgery. Less-radical changes may be had at Thai spas. The exotic culture of Bali attracts Osborne, but his objective remains Papua New Guinea, where too much cleanliness can be dangerous since the locals confuse soap perfumes with evil spirits. Nevertheless, in this South Pacific remoteness, Osborne finally attains his travel goal of reaching a place where no one has yet seen tourists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)