Neufeld, Josh – A Few Perfect Hours

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A Few Perfect Hours

In the introduction to this book Sari (Josh’s partner for the past ten years and the person who went on these travels with him) says that the threat of 9/11 and terrorism in general make these stories look like “a letter from the past”, as they all take place in the 90’s. That’s true. I know people are still traveling the world and living out of their backpacks, but I can’t imagine that many of them are doing it as innocently as Josh and Sari did. Still, my problem with a lot of auto-bio (even some of the stuff that I like) is that some of these people just don’t have much to talk about. Yes, it’s important to examine their lives, but it adds a whole bunch to have stories from people who have traveled all over the world and did as much as they could to escape the beaten path at every opportunity. They start of in Bangkok, where they visit a Buddhist temple and Josh lets his hair down a bit (metaphysically speaking), while Sari deals internally with some of the local cuisine. Then it’s on to The Cave of Fear, an underground cave with tiny crawlspaces that are necessary to traverse the length of the tunnel. Next they travel to Nakhon Phanom, a city in Thailand, where they have to stay with some American fundamentalists so that they can stay in town to see a local festival. They also work at an organic farm in the hopes of meeting some locals, get cameos in a Singapore soap opera, drink with The Serbian Bear, talk with a traveling Ice Cream Man, and deal with the death of Josh’s grandmother, which brings back memories of a cremation in Bali. There are also travel tips for people who might be leaving the country, and pretty much everything there was essential reading. While I’m glad that the Xerix Foundation gave Josh money to print this, I find it a little hard to believe that the independent publishers weren’t fighting over this one. It’s a fantastic, gripping group of stories that really does feel like it’s from the past, and it’s important to read them in the context of today. Even in these countries, which are mostly not currently at war with us, would it be safe to wander around as they did and basically hope for the best at times? Regardless, there’s plenty to be learned here and there’s not a boring story in the bunch. A few of these were from some other sources, like a SPX anthology or Skeleton Key, but I hadn’t seen the vast majority of everything in here. It’s only $12.95, there’s a website up there in case the link to Amazon doesn’t work…