Eric Hansen (1) (1948–)

Hansen knows how to get the reader's attention. Orchid Fever opens with a human body falling through a rain forest canopy. His guide, Tiong, seemingly fell out of the sky. Hansen was on the island of Borneo to help build an upriver plant nursery for the Penan people. How is this for a cryptic meeting time and place: "The message was for them to meet us at the junction of the Limbang and Medalam rivers on the full moon of the fourth month of 1993" (p 8)?
He approaches his subject of orchid show more crime with a sense of skepticism at first. He calls these orchid-obsessed horticulturalists, "orchid people" as if they are some kind of alien race and yet, he travels the globe to meet them and start using words like racket, exploitation, trafficking, plunder, pirating, and smuggling to describe their behavior. Soon Hansen realizes these "orchid people" are so passionate about their orchids some can be driven to actual violence if provoked. It also seems that every time a legitimate researcher gets a shipment of orchids no matter how lawfully or innocently, that's when the trouble starts. But orchids are not just for flower shows and smuggling. Hansen travels to Turkey and learns about how orchid ice cream is made from the tubers of a specific orchid. A flour made from the dried tubers creates a chewy, almost elastic texture. He also learns of the medicinal properties of orchids with such claims as the ability to heal a damaged spleen, prevent cholera and tuberculosis, facilitate childbirth, and improve sex life. Orchis in Greek does mean testicle...Along those lines, you will be introduced to the term 'phyto-necrophilia.' It is the "abnormal fascination or love of a dead plant material. Yes, it's a thing. Hansen also travels to Minnesota, an area you don't readily think of for orchids, to meet a man who tries to save orchids from being bulldozed in developing areas. show less

Caution: Do Not read the opening passages of this book while drinking. Or in public. Or anywhere you would be embarassed to be caught laughing out loud.

I ran around from coworker to coworker and forced them to listen to me read passages aloud. I read to myself and giggled audibly (I also chuckled, chortled, and snorted, but I don’t like to talk about that.). I knew a tiny bit about orchids and orchid growers from reading The Orchid Thief (which I also recommend), but I believed that it was show more an isolated incident. Boy was I wrong.

These people are crazy! It’s a flower, for pete’s squeak, not diamonds or gold. But Hansen does an excellent job drawing you in and introducing you to the orchid people. You’ll become fascinated with the intricacies of orchid law and lore, but mostly with those who flout the (admittedly wacky) rules all for the love of a flower.

There’s the sweet little old lady with tens of thousands of dollars in contraband orchids in her basement. There’s the orchid lawmakers, most of whom wouldn’t recognize an orchid if it ran up and bit ‘em on the ankle. There’s the vicious infighting and competition for the rarest bulbs. There’s the passel of government agents, armed with machine guns, no less, who tear up some guys flooring because they believe he smuggles orchids.

Who knew the passions one little flower could arouse? Do yourself a favor and check this one out. Hansen clearly is as enthralled with his subjects as they are with orchids, and that makes for a very entertaining read indeed show less

Eric Hansen, the intrepid, foolhardy author of Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo, is back with adventures from a beguiling corner of the Middle East. Back in 1978, after a yacht-wreck in the Red Sea, he was stranded for two weeks on an uninhabited island off the coast of North Yemen. Rescued after two weeks by a boatload of amiable Eritrean arms smugglers, he left behind buried on the island a pile of notebooks that he had compiled during seven years of bumming around Greater show more Asia.

Most of Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea takes place a decade later when Hansen returns with the hope of recovering his notebooks. His plans to revisit the island are thwarted, however, by bureaucracy, military security zones, and rumors of the presence of Yasser Arafat. Fortunately, Hansen rapidly loses his sense of mission as he falls into the rhythms of the Yemeni male lifestyle. This demands spending a large part of each day chewing the hallucinogenic leaf qat.

Hansen wanders in a medieval landscape where tribesmen proffer spontaneous poems, but also tend to resolve minor disputes with the aid of AK-47s and a few hostages. Over several months, he meets missionaries, refugees and Western Arabists while happening upon ceremonies marking life and death. Here at last is a Muslim country where tradition is synonymous with generosity and tolerance, even of Jews and Nazaranis.

For one episode alone, this book will be cherished by anyone who—suffering from the temporary insanity induced by a civil war or a stolen passport—has ever sought the counsel of a U.S. diplomatic mission. With characteristic restraint, Hansen recalls: “I was given the impression that several dozen American citizens were shipwrecked each week in Yemen and the overworked staff was just going to have to draw the line somewhere. We were not offered as much as a glass of water, and assistance was limited to showing us the door and pointing vaguely in the direction of the only international-class hotel.” Ω

{ I hope I don’t give the impression that one has to go all the way to Yemen to experience Muslim hospitality. I meant that it doesn’t turn up often in travelogues of Muslim lands.} show less

I'm a sucker for fluffy, smart-aleck, 3-star travel memoirs, but this one was different. These stories (as the subtitle "Close Encounters with Strangers" suggests), are all about a diverse crowd of incredibly fascinating characters.

The title story was a wonderful study of the natural history of exotic dancers, "...you can't expect to mix money, men, naked women and alcohol and expect to have an easy time." It fell short on ornithology however. Through some shoddy note-taking or editing, the show more author mentions the main character's trip to Maine, in search of specialties like Colima Warbler and Harris' Hawk. Stick to the strippers, Mr. Hanson.

Many stories were predictable, but all were gems, from the nostagic "Life at the Grand Hotel", to the sad ghost story, "Three Nights on the Mountain".

Speaking of Ghosts, it was "The Ghost Wind" an underdog racing story, that brought a tear to my eye. 150 karoke-screaming cadets on the decrepit Indonesian tall ship beating Japan's "King of the Sea" in a wind-less race to LA. Great stuff. Great people. show less