Getting Stoned With Savages by J. Maarten Troost

I've read a couple of Troost's other books. They weren't too bad. He's a good travel writer; injects a lot of humor into his works. This book takes place kind of after the Sex Lives of Cannibals but you don't necessarily have to read them in order. They can quite easily be read as stand-alones although he does make quite a few references to his time in Kiribati (1st book) in this book.

Troost and his wife, after spending some time working in Washington DC, decide they need to go back to the Pacific. His wife finds a job in Vanuatu and they trek down there to stay. Troost, mostly unemployed (but working as a writer) spends the days exploring the area and finding out about the delights of Kava, a mild intoxicant drink that is quite popular in Vanuatu. Actually he spends a lot of time expressing his thoughts about kava. When they find out that they're expecting, they move to Fiji for better medical care and the last third of the book details this experience and their time in Fiji after the birth of their child.

Troost has a way of presenting islanders as very friendly and approachable. I'm not saying they aren't in real life, but he takes time to get to know them and to describe them in their way of thinking with their customs, not with preconceived notions that most tourists and foreigners would have judging by their own customs. He meets quite a few "characters" and its neat to see how well he gets along with everybody. Even the not so nice people he isn't overly harsh in his descriptions of them.

The bulk of this book is spent in Vanuatu. Which is good, I found his descriptions there much more interesting than the time spent in Fiji. Granted Fiji was having some political unrest, but the book manages to drag those parts out and make them somewhat boring. Vanuatu by contrast had more detail on the people and customs and his dalliance with kava, which was hilarious to read. Not to mention he does some research on cannibalism in the area. As said before, in addition to being a travel writer, Troost does a good job in the humor department as well. He isn't mean spirited but more pokes fun at himself. The little chapter descriptions before each chapter were hilarious in and of themselves.

I liked this one by Troost and will keep my eye out for any other of his books that I haven't read. I do enjoy his style of writing.

Getting Stoned with Savages
Copyright 2006
235 pages

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost

Hmmm, there wasn't much about sex or cannibals in this book, but despite this, it was uproariously funny. I had read one of Troost's books before and was only luke-warm towards it, this one however, was a a pretty good book.

Troost and his girlfriend Sylvia decide they need to get away from it all after graduating from college. They apply for jobs all over and finally one comes in from a little island in the Pacific, Tarawa, which is a part of the Republic of Kiribati. Since he is essentially a "house husband" here he finds himself spending the days surfing, cleaning, worrying about clean water and trying to find some sort of food. Most worrying is that with the abundance of people and no reliable waste disposal, the surrounding area is very toxic and even the local fish are dangerous to eat. It certainly provides an adventure for even surviving on the island.

Troost and his girlfriend spend two years on this island where gradually they become used to the living conditions (although not the Macarena, which is played constantly by everyone). Although somewhat deceiving there is cannibalism and an interesting sex life portrayed on the island. But it isn't by the people, but rather the wild dogs that roam the area. They manage to survive their time but it leaves them deeply changed and the last chapter deals with how they try to adjust to life in America and their attempts to buy clothes, shop for groceries in a place that provides maximum choices, and re-adjusting to needing money for most things.

Troost is a very funny writer. While his work isn't very polished it does have a great flow to it and he injects a huge amount of humor into it. With his descriptions it is easy to see the island where he lives through his words. You can see the beaches, the trees, the glaringly hot sun. But to this same extent you can see the filth, the mangy animals and the other disastrous elements that makes the island a dangerous place to live. Troost is a great narrator and his voice provides a good telling for the story. My only complaint would be that he is very whiny. Yes he tells everything as hilarious, but overall there is a sense of self pity in the book. Its almost as if he barely found anything utterly fantastic and that there was a bad element to everything.

He does a decent job of describing the people of the island. They are varied in their thoughts but all love storytelling, eating good food, and beer. On an island there's not much to do so singing and dancing and overall just music is a great hobby here. They also have "local legends" of their own and love telling Troost stories about the people and area. He in turn gives us a nice retelling of some of these stories.

This book was definitely one of the better ones I've read of his. I'll probably continue to read his books and look forward to some of the other places he visits and writes about.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals
Copyright 2004
272 pages

Lost on Planet China by J Maarten Troost

This book was not at all what I expected. Having read reviews of Troost's work I had expected something funny, uplifting and definitely a great description of the areas he visited. What I got was something funny, somewhat depressing and a biased view of the areas he visited.

Having lived in the tropics for awhile Troost had already wrote books about those areas. Now, living in California, he decided a trip to China would be interesting. Packing his bags he left his kids and wife in Sacramento and started his journey of the large country known as China.

He goes many places while there, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tibet, and many other cities and rural areas. However, the prevailing theme of these areas seems to be pollution, people relieving themselves in the streets, brothels, and people hacking up their lungs. Now I don't deny that China has some serious pollution and social order problems, what I do deny is the fact that he didn't really find anything positive to write about when traveling to all these different places. There were times when you thought you were about to have something positive shown, but then he'd snatch it away claiming he couldn't see it because of the smog. Could this be true? Maybe. But not to the extent he took it is my guess.

There was one part where he and a friend (who was equally pessimistic) hiked to a gorge. There was a lot of build up to seeing this gorge. And then, after crossing the waterfall they somehow ended up in another town. While I guess I could have missed it, I read the section twice, and did not find any actual description of seeing this amazing gorge. This same thing happens with climbing a mountain, he reaches the top only to find it overly crowded and the view somewhat blocked by smog.

The only positive writings I do remember are in description of the food. While he has some nervousness on eating it initially, most of what he tries ends up being wonderful. Which is a relief really, I was hoping the trip wasn't all doom and gloom. Tibet he also treated as sort of luke warm, blaming the Chinese for ruining the wonderness of it all and making it less than it should be. While Tibet has had several atrocities done to it, surely just being there would have been amazing for any traveler I would think.

A redeeming thing about Troost though is that he is very funny. Even though the book was disheartening, he did it comically. Its amazing how one man can have so much trouble haggling and finding himself in uncomfortable situations. Not to mention the language barrier made things interesting for him as well. I should note that some of his jokes were political in nature and could be offensive for some people.

I won't say I actually hated the book. I enjoyed some of it and I did like Troost's writing style. That alone made up for the severely pessimistic tone that he took. I just wished that he could have shared more of the good side of China in addition to the bad. It would appear that he did extensive research before visiting because he was able to tell a bit of the history of each place he visited and also was able to tell the history of some of the reign of Mao. It wasn't included extensively in his book but it did provide a nice background to focus on when reading about his travels.

I'll probably read his other books, just because they are supposed to be more positive than this one. Even if they are just as pessimistic though his writing is sure to be just as humorous.

Lost on Planet China
Copyright 2008
380 pages