An Empire of the East: Travels in Indonesia

by NormanLewis (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $5.26

  Some of the adventures in Norman Lewis's book about Indonesia are unpremeditated. He goes to Aceh, North Sumatra, in the hope of describing its reserve of the richest fauna and flora in the world but runs into a separatist insurrection and he is deserted by his guide. East Timor is notoriously hard to enter, but Lewis travels there with his daughter, in a lull in the fighting, stays in a Catholic orphanage, and returns with an account of the life of the survivors. In Irian Jays he learns of the existence of Yali tribal communities living in stone-age culture little altered in 10,000 years. Lewis's Yali hosts, who are presumed to have tasted human flesh, are courteous and kindly. This book, above all, is an account of a race against time to see, enjoy and describe beautiful places while they are still there.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $15.56

  If ever there was a race against time, it is a race to see, enjoy and describe the beautiful places while they are still there' Norman Lewis's trip begins in the Yali country of West New Guinea, now known as Irian Jaya, where penis sheaths are the only article of Male attire and farmers still hack at the earth with stone adzes. Nothing new has happened here for 10, 000 years. Elsewhere change races ahead of the guidebooks as Lewis travels through the Western Highlands some 200 miles away and on to Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra where a unique pine forest he is urged to visit has been handed over to a logging concern and by the time he reaches it most of the trees have been turned into cement sacks. The final leg of the journey is through war-torn East Tomir.