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Discovering the World . . . via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes
Broadway
March 2010
On Sale: March 16, 2010
304 pages
ISBN: 0767929802
EAN: 9780767929806
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Indonesian Ferry Sinks. Peruvian Bus Plunges Off Cliff.
African Train Attacked by Mobs. Whenever he picked up the
newspaper, Carl Hoffman noticed those short news bulletins,
which seemed about as far from the idea of tourism, travel
as the pursuit of pleasure, as it was possible to get. So
off he went, spending six months circumnavigating the globe
on the world's worst conveyances: the statistically most
dangerous airlines, the most crowded and dangerous ferries,
the slowest buses, and the most rickety trains. The
Lunatic Express takes us into the heart of the world, to
some its most teeming cities and remotest places: from
Havana to Bogotá on the perilous Cuban Airways. Lima to
the Amazon on crowded night buses where the road is a
washed-out track. Across Indonesia and Bangladesh by
overcrowded ferries that kill 1,000 passengers a year. On
commuter trains in Mumbai so crowded that dozens perish
daily, across Afghanistan as the Taliban closes in, and,
scariest of all, Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by
Greyhound. The Lunatic Express is the story of traveling with
seatmates and deckmates who have left home without American
Express cards on conveyances that don't take Visa, and
seldom take you anywhere you'd want to go. But it's also
the story of traveling as it used to be -- a sometimes
harrowing trial, of finding adventure in a modern, rapidly
urbanizing world and the generosity of poor strangers, from
ear cleaners to urban bus drivers to itinerant roughnecks,
who make up most of the world's population. More than just
an adventure story, The Lunatic Express is a funny,
harrowing and insightful look at the world as it is, a
planet full of hundreds of millions of people, mostly poor,
on the move and seeking their fortunes.
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