[.ca] Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest ... (ISBN 0679740104)

From Amazon.com:
Some women seek adventure to test their mettle, suck down jolts of adrenaline, and prove they haven't grown old and indolent. In Shooting the Boh, journalist Tracy Johnston identifies other motivations for joining a group scheduled to raft down a previously uncharted section of the Boh river in Borneo. "I am by nature a passive person who likes excitement; a person with no magnificent obsessions who loves to participate in them," she says. And, too, if she agreed to write an article about it, the trip was free. So began an arduous, ill-conceived journey that started with her losing a duffle bag of top-notch river gear and swiftly ran up against treacherous rapids, foot rot, hot flashes, Tarzan-like leeches, clouds of sweat bees, and other nerve-racking flora and fauna. While traversing a section of steamy rain forest, Johnston says, "a quarter of the things I touched had thorns or sharp spines and the rest were covered with ants." She replays the highs and lows of the trip in Technicolor, summing up her fellow travelers and their wild ride in fluid, punchy prose. --Francesca Coltrera

Very honest:
Anyone looking for "The Perfect Storm" or a rollicking whitewater adventure will be disappointed by this very honest account of a woman on a rafting trip. The trip itself is almost a complete disaster, but the compelling story is how a normally strong, self-sufficient woman suddenly finds herself coping with her changing role in the group dynamic, and the very important factors of physical beauty. Anyone who has been on a group adventure tour will recognize the diversity of personalities and realize that getting down the rapids is only half of the challenge!

There are better Borneo adventure books to read...:
Unlike Redmond O'Hanlon's book on the same subject, which is hysterically funny, Shooting the Boh is midly funny and one that I think will appeal more to female readers (my husband found this to be quite dull) due to the self-confessed menopausal musings of the author on traveling down river with a boat full of men and a younger, svelte, pretty (French) woman whom Johnston claims seemed to be immune to sweating or even appearing the slightest bit wrinkled by their circumstances! Unlike O'Hanlon's interactions with the locals or his constantt making fun of himself (and his effete poet traveling companion), at times Johnston seemed to turn her narrative too much to her own neuroses (and internal observations of herself & the other travelers) and thereby lose the experience of going down a river in Borneo for the reader... which is why I read the book in the first place. Eric Hansen's STRANGER IN THE FOREST or O'Hanlon's book on Borneo are far superior.

Shooting the Shallows:
A band of adventure lovers tries to be the first to raft down the Boh River in Borneo. You'd think it would be a ripping good adventure story: they're out in the middle of nowhere with no rescue radios to call for help, on an uncharted river without good maps, riding in rafts that flip over when they hit the rocks wrong. They barely miss going over a waterfall, the three-day trip is on day nine, they're running out of food, and foot rot is making it really tough to walk. But incredibly, the author downplays all these dangers and instead gives us a book-length musing on her fading youth and beauty. She's endlessly fascinated with co-tourist Sylvie, a twenty-something fashion model whose reason for being on the trip is never adequately explained. She carefully documents Sylvie's laughing comments in French, the way she sleeps, her videotaped snapshots of the beautiful people on the trip, and her every mini-bikini and clean, dry shirt. With Sylvie around, says the author, "I could see that men were ignoring me and I didn't like it." She gives us every nuance of Sylvie's jungle romance with Mike the hunky boatman, from his initial attentions to their every disappearance later on. The pair could have been used to good advantage, giving the author a chance to reflect on her own marriage to a man who doesn't accompany her on adventures. Kelly Winters is frank about her personal life in WALKING HOME, because her personal life has everything to do with why she's on the trip. But not Johnston. Not even the onset of hot flashes crack her. Proof that her childbearing days are over (even if she does survive the trip) provoke no thoughts on the choices she's made. We are given no information as to whether she has kids or not, or whether her career has worked out the way she'd expected. Menopause hits and she never once thinks about what might have been. She never once wonders if she's made the right choices. Indeed, her major annoyance is not her hot flashes (or the bees, leeches, or poisonous snakes) but the fact that Sylvie is consistently failing to loan her an air mattress. Of all the nerve, can you believe it? An air mattress, the one thing she cannot live without. And why doesn't Johnston have an air mattress? Well, her luggage never made it to Jakarta. She went out shopping for replacement supplies, but was apparently too jetlagged to remember anything that she'd spent months acquiring back at home. She only manages to buy tennis shoes ("too large"), a flashlight ("too powerful"), a towel ("the size of a doily"), a pair of shorts, and unsatisfactory flowered bedsheets. But sirrah! The intrepid adventurer doesn't turn back, she goes anyway...and spends the entire trip begging foot powder and flashlight batteries from everyone there, even the river guides who need them. She makes no attempt to adequately explain her problem to anyone, and when they react badly, she wants us to pity her. Oh, and she'd injured her back a month before the trip and can't do any heavy lifting. She was no more revealing about anyone else on the trip, either. Not once is anyone shown to be, for example, *afraid*. No one is described in any revealing detail. Her big revelation has nothing to do with death or life, but rather that Sylvie's constant body checking for blemishes, and her huge wardrobe packed in double plastic bags is a good set of living skills for the rain forest. Meanwhile, all the real dangers are waved away; they're the guides' problem. It's all too clear that this tourist has paid her money and will sit in the raft and be one with the rain forest and write in her journal until it's time to beg for stuff. An unsatisfactory adventure all around.

One of my all-time favorites:
I've bought this book as a gift for at least five other people and will probably buy more in the future. Ms. Johnston uses the white-water rafting trip from hell as a metaphor for her voyage into menopause, lost youth, and self-discovery. Don't miss it!

Better her than me!:
This book grew on me as I read it. As a backpacker & traveler who has "enjoyed" the occasional less-than-perfect adventure, I had difficulty sympathizing with Ms. Johnston. I hate to diss someone who's been through what was certainly a life-threatening experience, but I thought she came off whiney, particularly in the beginning of the book. As her personality seemed to grow on the rest of her group, though, it grew on me as well. I found her description of the hardships and excitement of the journey to be excellent, although I wish she'd fleshed-out the characters a little more.