The Naked Tourist: In Search of Adventure and Beauty in the Age of the Airport Mall

I always enjoy a Lawrence Osborne book, somewhat similar to an A.A. Gill book, this time he wrote about travel, tourism, and being a tourist. Are tourists and tourism destroying mystery and paradises around the world, are we becoming so homogeneous that everything needs to be perfectly packaged, a Disney experience if you will. Sadly, probably so, but you can learn and certainly laugh your way through the authors experiences. The book is from 2006, and I would love for him to write a part 2 with a different final destination.

This is one of the more satisfying books I have read this year. The author begins with a quick spin through the history of western tourism - proving along the way that he is a traveller, and not a tourist. Subsequent chapters are about his generally amusingly described exploits on his way to the main event, an escorted trip through the remote and often unexplored Irian Jaya. Don't rush to sign up for an adventure in that part of the world - the Indonesians don't encourage visitors and many of the locals have never before seen a person with a white skin.

The contrast between this second part of the book and the civilised first which include an expedition to a Bangkok sex change clinic and thalassery provide food for thought.

Ah, at last! I’m finished with reading children’s books and I’m back to reading whatever I wish. So for my first trip back into reading what I want I picked this book from my enormous TBR. Osborne is fed up with what he terms Whatever travel, travel that takes you to places that are as indistinguishable as bottled water. He decides to try Papua New Guinea. It’s an excellent choice for someone jaded to travel. If you are seeking being shot at with arrows, swimming with crocodiles, visiting with indigenous people wearing nothing but a shell, then this book might be a good destination for you.

I liked the topic of the book and I was completely fascinated by the hotel development in Dubai (The World: a huge development selling beachfront hotel properties in the shape of all the countries of the world), the medical tourism in Bangkok (plastic surgery and sex changes), and the pseudo-anthropological visit to a native Papuan tribe. I think the author excelled in commenting on contemporary culture and was hilarous at times describing people and their odd habits. I wasn’t as keen on the “first contact” as tourism part. I guess, since I don’t have the desire to meet people who have never seen a white Anglo-I just cannot connect with the story.

Also, at times I couldn’t follow the author’s prose rhythm. it threw me off and show more I had to reread several sentences. It wasn’t exactly bad grammar, just a strange flow in the writing.

I share the author’s fear of flying and liked this quote: “It is in airports, in any case, that I always make a final reckoning with the life I have lived up till then as well as the unknown place that I am about to enter. If, like me, you think you are going to die every time you fly, you do this—it is like saying the Last Rites to yourself.” show less

El escritor Lawrence Osborne, pese a saber que por muy lejos que uno vaya siempre habrá un tour operator esperándolo, busca un lugar alejado de la civilización en la isla de Papúa Nueva Guinea. Y decide emprender un viaje distinto a cualquier otro: empezando por uno de los destinos más contaminados de la Tierra, como el Dubái que los jeques están transformando en un inmenso parque temático, las islas Andamán, semiderruidas por el tsunami y en proceso de reconstrucción como las nuevas Maldivas, Tailandia, vista como una enorme ciudad de la salud y del fitness, para concluir en una inmensa isla entre cielos verdes, ríos enrojecidos y volcanes en erupción, donde Osborne se encontrará desnudo y feliz en medio de una orgía show more tribal, no sin antes haber sabido transmitir al lector su irresistible manía de viajar a todas partes, en un mundo que estamos transformando en una terrible caricatura de nuestras propias fantasías. Lawrence Osborne disecciona las ciudades con la precisión de un cirujano y nos muestra sus tripas como nadie ha sido capaz de hacerlo hasta ahora. show less

El autor busca un lugar alejado de la civilización en la isla de Papúa Nueva Guinea, empezando por uno de los destinos mas contaminados de la Tierra, ,como el de Dubái y continuando por las islas Andamán y Tailandia. En Papúa se encuentra en una inmensa isla entre cielos verdes, ríos enrojecidos y volcanes en erupción, en medio de una orgía tribal.