num_pages: 304
description: From Library JournalCorn is a freelance travel writer who "takes it as it comes." Here, he paints a picture of a diverse and exotic Indonesia. Traveling by train, bus, boat, and plane during the late 1980s and early 1990s, he experiences the good and the bad of Indonesia. He relates his experiences on Komodo Island, home to the large predatory lizard; among the cannibals of TelukBantini, who dissect their victims with bone knives; in Jakarta, teeming with transvestites and the poor; on the Borneo waterway, whose banks of giant orchids and trees are laced with pythons; and on the Barito River, whose water is the color of blood. Recommended for large travel collections on the basis of Corn's engrossing anecdotes.- Fern Sikkema, Schnader, Harrison, Segal &amp; Lewis, Washington, D.C.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Kirkus ReviewsTravel-writer Corn (The New York Times, etc.) goes to Indonesia to satisfy his lifelong curiosity about the vast, 13,677- island archipelago. Setting out with only a vague itinerary and a determination to take travel as it comes, Corn begins his adventures in Jakarta, a teeming city of eight million, where he is accosted by transvestites; and concludes them in Padang, a port city where he stays overnight at an isolated, near-empty hotel run by a coquettish middle-aged Englishwoman. In between are stops in Bali, a legendary paradise now overrun with Australian tourists; Sumba, where a Chinese guide gives the author a tour by motorbike; Timor, where he has a run-in with local authorities regarding off-limits territories; Kupang, the island where Captain Bligh landed after the Bounty mutineers set him adrift; and the now nearly forgotten Spice Islands, which once were fiercely fought over for their precious crops of cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Many of Corn's descriptions are wonderfully fresh (``The skipper is a rail-thin man, sleek as a sea bird and blackened by the sun, squatting on his haunches and sipping his tea'') and many of his anecdotes are charming; the quality of delight that he describes as characteristic of the Indonesian people is mirrored in his writing. He also provides just enough background information to clarify but not stultify. But some of the book's strengths are also its weaknesses: This is very much a once-over-lightly account, with the narrator hopping from island to island so quickly and frequently that it is often hard to keep either him or Indonesia in clear focus. A map is also sorely missing. Still, a fresh, well-written account of a journey through an often-overlooked region. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
language: English
title: Distant Islands: Travels Across Indonesia
titlecomplete: Distant Islands: Travels Across Indonesia
ratings_count: 7
publisher: Viking