Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea by Eric Hansen

Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea Reviews

• 
  Daren

  OK so best to acknowledge first up, the title of this book is not great. I don't favour it, because ultimately, he spent only a chapter with Mohammed, a driver / guide, when he first arrived back in Yemen, it isn't really representative of the book. Once past that - great book, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, even though I had some nervousness, having enjoyed
  Stranger In The Forest, about Borneo, by the same author, and was concerned this wouldn't attain the same quality.
  
  The short version is, (no spoilers - Hansen tells us all this in the foreword, then explains it in much more detail over the first four chapters) that with four others he was shipwrecked in 1978 on an small uninhabited island - a part of Yemen, in the Red Sea. While shipwrecked he buried seven years worth of travel diaries in order to preserve them, as he rescue not only involved Eritrean goat smugglers, but also time in prison in Yemen while they decided whether he was a spy or not. In 1990, his 12 years of daydreaming about returning and recovering his journals led him to set off for Yemen to attempt.
  
  The balance of the book chart his time in Yemen. As expected, names are changed, stories and characters are combined and compacted, etc, so there is likely some artistic license in the telling. It is largely chronological, excepting where he skips ahead or back to common topics, and is basically a series of chapters collecting anecdotes and experiences as he fails to obtain the permissions needed to revisit the island (a military zone) and search for his buried journals.
  
  These stories and anecdotes cleverly explain the character and customs of the people of Yemen; the political and legal system; the authority and bureaucracy of the military, the police, the community leaders; how the expat society finds it place and navigates the operation of the country; and much more. Hansen lives down, mixes with the locals, joins in, contributes and does all that he can to gain an insight into everyday life in Yemen. He is sympathetic to all the complexities and problems in Yemeni society, and paints a great picture for the reader and there are plenty of laughs.
  
  It is obvious that for this book to work, it requires a fairytale ending, but does Hansen get it? Find a copy and see.
  
  Recommended.
  
  5 stars
• 
  Jacob Overmark

  Yemen was on my bucket list for decades … and I did not go when I had the chance ...
  
  It has all the "Arabic mystery" you could dream of, a fascinating history and an abundance of historic relics, more or less untouched.
  
  Regrettably not anymore. Years of unrest after first the split into a North- and a South Yemen and then the relatively succesful reunion has not brought out the best in people - or their neighboring countries.
  Situated in a geopolitical strategic sphere, watching the entry to The Red Sea does not make it any easier.
  Presently at least four groups are claiming power for a number of different reasons and it seems a lasting peace is not just around the corner.
  
  Famine is a threat to the population and most of the world is standing by, not putting pressure on the parties, and not being able to step in with humanitarian aid for fear of loss of lives.
  
  
  But this book is a snapshot from times when the situation was a bit more tolerable, even you still had to come well prepared for all kinds of red-taping obstacles.
  
  As an introduction we get the background, and then some, for Eric Hansen´s travels to Yemen.
  He is already a well traveled man, used to situations requiring quick change of plans.
  
  However, there are new lessons to be learned in Yemen. While you may have to change plans, don´t expect it to be quick and be prepared for the almost mandatory khat sittings where everything may be concluded in the end under the drowsing influence.
  
  It is a wonderful trip into a country and society that most of us will never experience firsthand, told with a bit of hindsight melancholy and enthusiasm, but not least with love to all the kind people who one way or the other paved the way for Eric Hansen in Yemen.
• 
  Alex Klaushofer

  Beautifully-written book that gets under the skin of a little-known country.
• 
  Scott

  In 1978 Eric Hansen was shipwrecked on a tiny island off the coast of northern Yemen. While his fellow castaways frolicked carelessly in their new-found playground, Hansen worried over who might rescue them. Pirates and terrorists topped his list. So, he decided to bury deep in the sand his most valued possessions: travel journals recording a decade of vagabondage. When deliverance in the form of Eritrean goat smugglers arrived, Hansen thought it best to leave his precious books hidden, hoping to return and recover them in a few months.
  
  Ten years passed before he made his way back to Yemen. (In the meantime he trekked across Borneo ... but that's another, better book). Motoring with Mohammed (1991) relates his bungled attempts to retrieve the journals. And it sketches the curious people he meets along the way: Bud-swigging wildcatters trapped in a 1950s time warp, a French engineer jailed for smuggling, a myopic British language teacher/amateur ornithologist, foreign brides, smug embassy officials, and the odd American who sits outside Sana’a’s public restrooms, counting the patrons. The book is also populated with lots of qat-chewing Yemenis, wacky backpackers, and shady fixers who offer to help recover the journals, for a price. The Mohammad of the title shows up for only a few pages, but that’s just as well since he and the sheep he keeps in the back seat of his taxi are some of the least unusual characters Hansen met.
  
  Hansen paints the first few chapters in some pretty rosy hues, but as the book moves on, it gets grittier and much better, and by the time you find him pummeled by heavy rain while clinging to the sharp cliffs overlooking the Empty Quarter you may be fixed. This quick read probably won’t entice you to book a flight for Yemen, but it may revive nostalgic memories of ex-pats you’ve met, and it’s certainly piqued my interest in reading more by Eric Hansen.
• 
  Kkraemer

  This is a great book.
  
  Yemen is not a place that many people have gone, and certainly not a place from which great scenes, great stories, and great descriptions seem to emanate; however, in the hands of Eric Hansen, Yemen is just that place. He goes to Yemen, the first time, by accident, and is one of those travelers who finds people both fascinating and funny. He stays for awhile, returns home, and is haunted by the fact that he, a writer, has left behind his notebooks. He needs those notebooks. They are the chronicle of his life of travel and they are the sources for his future writing.
  
  So he returns to Yemen to retrieve the notebooks. As it turns out, this requires many many detours...psychological, cultural, and geographical. It requires much paperwork, too, and many many friends (as well as $ to grease palms and wheels). He rolls with it, and tells the stories of his encounters in ways that made me laugh out loud (and read sections to those around me, always a very popular move...)
  
  This is a great book. I'll read more of Eric Hansen. You'll have to read this one, though, to find out about those notebooks...
• 
  John Machata

  One of the best travel books of all time!
• 
  Kathleen (itpdx)

  An amazing “travel” book. In 1978 the author,
  Eric Hansen, was shipwrecked on an uninhabited Yemeni island in the Red Sea. His description of the storm before the shipwreck and of his odd assortment of shipmates is very well written. At the time of their rescue, Hansen, buries his journals of seven years of travel. He recounts his first experiences in what was then North Yemen. and then negotiates a flight home.
  Ten years later, 1988, Hansen wants to find a way to recover his buried journals and returns to Yemen. What he thinks will take a couple of weeks stretches into several months during which he learns much about Yemen and its inhabitants but does not get very close to the island where his journals may still be buried. His excellent descriptions give the reader a taste of Yemeni culture and attitudes. We are able to see a picture of this country long before the disastrous civil war currently ongoing there.
  Does he retrieve his journals? We know from his introduction that in 1990 he has them in New York. Read the book to find out how and enjoy a journey through Yemen.
• 
  Nick

  Now for something completely different!
  Motoring with Mohammed turned out to be quirky book containing a series of stories about living and travelling in Yemen around 1990. Lots of really interesting (and many surprising!) insights about Arabic Muslim culture, society - and food! However, it was a slow moving story, and I found it a bit hard to keep on going all the way to the end.
• 
  Unwisely

  Man. This guy has lived an amazing life. Or, at least, he alludes to more interesting stuff. Not that this isn't plenty interesting. He gets to Yemen the first time via shipwreck (in the 1970s). And that's a bizarre thing. Then he goes back looking for notebooks he left there. And, just, the bizarre and strange things that happen. (And it's a pretty thin book.)
  
  While reading this, I vaguely thought I'd read another book on Yemen, because I distinctly remember the whole tradition of dudes chewing leaves to get stoned. Turns out I was thinking of
  The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, which is a completely different society. I still want to read a book about either of these places from the *female* perspective.
  
  But, a pretty interesting read about a place that is pretty obscure to me.
  
  (3.5 stars)
• 
  Diane

  Sometimes I really enjoyed this book. Since I know nothing about Yemen, it was very interesting. I kept wondering how much the country may have changed since 1991 when the book was first published. THe author's experiences certainly do not sound like these people are part of the "evil empire" at all, but generally welcoming and fun loving. One of my favorite lines refers to being able to solve a dispute with a poetry contest in the old days. But sometimes I was frustrated with the author. I actively cannot stand travel books that celebrate their stupid unpreparedness - and he seemed to relish things like climbing in the mountains with no food, no warm clothing, no equipment and then providing "ain't it awful" scenarios. On the whole, however, I enjoyed the books more than I was annoyed.
• 
  Lynn

  It took me awhile to finish this book. Life intervened! I really liked the first part where he describes his original trip to Yemen and how he lost the notebooks. The middle section, when he's trying to get the notebooks back and failing, is good, but by its nature it meanders. Each section was interesting, but it lacked much forward momentum.
  Parts of it were more interesting than others, but overall, I really enjoyed it. Would I recommend it? Yes, but you have to know what you are in for. It is interesting in a meandering kind of way. Each chapter is episodic, and parts of the book lack any forward momentum.
  That said, I liked it, overall.
  
• 
  Sharazade Sharazade

  Travel writing at its best--plenty of cultural insights and details, and an engaging (and humorous) story to boot; several engaging stories, actually, since the book covers two separate journeys to Yemen 10 years apart.
  
  I've been to Yemen, and his observations rang true to me--qat chewers, bureaucrats & their regulations, oddball expats, desert landscapes, islands, the remarkable Yemeni hospitality.
• 
  Danielle

  Loved this book! Thanks to Laura Puryear for sharing this look at a more peaceful Yemen. The author had brilliant descriptions of his travails and travels and I loved his quest for his lost journals.
• 
  Monica

  A decent read, particularly the part about the shipwreck and rescue. Not a great title.
• 
  Jennifer

  This is the first of Eric Hansen's books i read and i was hooked!!
• 
  Mitchell

  In the late 1980s, the author asked a rabbi who had recently visited Yemen about persecutions of Jews. "To the contrary," he replied. "Yemeni society is tolerant. The situation here demonstrates how well Jews and Moslems can live together without the interference of Zionism and Israel. Yemeni Jews are very orthodox, but they also chew qat with their Moslem neighbors."
  
  Here's the Middle East in a nutshell before greedy Saudi royalty started meddling. What does Yemen have? It has rich reserves of minerals such as gold, copper, lead, nickel, coal, rock salt, and petroleum.
  
  Highly recommend this book for an entertaining education of Yemen before the wars. I first heard about these essays in a Jon Carroll column in one of the SF newspapers in about '90 or '91. I clipped the column and it hung on my refrigerator for several years. Several times I pick up the Tony Horwitz book on his travels across the Middle East. Nope. I would slam down the book each time I reached the last page.
  
  Finally!!!! This is It! I must add Yemen is a country I would rather visit in print than in real life. Hansen suffered, so we don't have to. He is a tremendous writer. Check out his other books, too.
• 
  Marcia

  Eric Hansen is a great writer about his wanderings in little-explored parts of the world. His book just prior to this one: Stranger in the Forest, is about trekking through the wilds of Borneo. After that trip, he is shipwrecked off the coast of Yemen (yes, really!) and he is forced to bury his manuscript pages for Stranger in the Forest under the sands of a remote Yemeni beach. This book relates what happens next, and his struggles to return to the beach and retrieve his precious manuscript. It's a true adventure story, and a very good one.
• 
  Kevin Tole

  All putative travel writers should read Hansen's book.
  
  THE Perfect travel book without being a travel book. Hansen knows how to take himself seriously by not taking himself seriously. It's the story and methodology of the Yemen. many many travel writers could learn from him.
  
  Sad to think that now the country has been bombed and starved back to the middle ages again by it's croesus-like wealthy neighbour.
• 
  Terri

  An interesting travel log from a man who, ten years after being ship wrecked on a small island in the Red Sea, returns in an attempt to find his long lost notebooks, that he had buried while stranded to keep them safe. Lots of interesting, if somewhat disjointed stories of the people he met, their adventures, customs and conditions in Yemen in the late 1980.
• 
  D

  Read this book if you want to know Yemen as it was in the late eighties when the author, a skillful traveler and knowing a smattering of Arabic, returns in search of his lost journals. A fast read with a little too much detail in the beginning which lays out the scene he will revisit ten years later. (Now I want a book that will bring me up to date.)
• 
  Mark Isaak

  A travelogue (essentially) which gives a good feeling for Yemeni culture. Though one chapter dragged, the incidents described and language describing them held my interest well.