I suppose I’ve always known that there are men in isolated parts of the word who dress in bark-fiber loincloths and lace their arms and legs in animist tattoos, but it was a tad strange to meet one in person. During the days I stayed at Amantiru’s longhouse a part of me kept waiting for…
1) On the way trails have made us what we are Trails can be found in virtually every part of this vast, strange, mercurial, partly tamed, but still shockingly wild world of ours. Throughout the history of life on Earth, we have created pathways to guide our journeys, transmit messages, refine chaos, and preserve wisdom.…
The Baderaeket River is the first step in reaching the Mentawai tribal villages on the Siberut Island. “Baderaeket” means “One Way” – and the river has this name because it’s the only way to get into the rainforest on this part of the island. After traveling 20 miles up the Baderaeket River by boat with…
I am by nature an introvert – and this instinct can really kick in when I’m around people who don’t speak English. Usually, in a place like Asia, someone will come over and try to strike up a conversation, but these women did not. At least, not at first. I took this picture not long…
Travel has a way of making you imagine yourself living alternate existences. Sometimes these daydreams are the result of genuine cross-cultural empathy. Just as often, however, they are pure fantasy. I saw this little island on the high-speed ferry to the Mentawai Archipelago from the Sumatran mainland. It seemed perfect somehow, with its white-sand beach,…
When we recount our travels to other people, it is common and understandable to leave out those throwaway afternoons when a simple task goes awry in a banal way. Misadventures, of course – those spectacular and at times melodramatic failures of the expected – are the bread-and-butter of travel writing. But it’s less common to…
By Peter Hessler Originally published in The New Yorker, July 24, 2000 (an excerpt) “Do you want a big rat or a small rat?” the waitress asked. I was getting used to making difficult decisions in Luogang, a small village in southern China’s Guangdong Province. I’d come here on a whim, having heard that Luogang had…
I met Toikot on Siberut, the largest island in the Mentawai Archipelago, off the western coast of Sumatra. Toikot is 78 years old. Like most Mentawai men his hair has remained jet-black into old age, and his lean, ropy muscles would put even Iggy Pop to shame. His full-body tattoos mark him as a shaman,…
Of all the travel-instincts I’ve built up over the years, few compare to the hard-won skills I learned during my two-year stint as an English-conversation teacher in South Korea. As exhausting at that job could at times be, it taught me how to interact with people who have yet to master spoken English. It made…
Hello Guesthouse in Bukittinggi has an unassailable word-of-mouth reputation among backpackers who’ve been to this part of Sumatra – in large part because of Ling, who co-owns the place with her parents, and knows a little bit about everything there is to see and do within a 100-mile radius of the city. The work that…
More often than not travel writing (and, in particular, travel Instagram) leaves out those necessary but far less glamorous moments of travel that are nonetheless essential if the travel — and travel writing — process is going to happen. I’m thinking of those small moments of running errands, doing laundry, waiting in line at train…
