Getting Stoned With Savages, II

I’m a little more than halfway through Troost’s book, Getting Stoned with Savages, and I’ve got to say I would recommend it.  It’s not really heavy on deep travel information, and it certainly isn’t about getting high with the natives of Vanuatu, although he does write a chapter on drinking kava with the locals.  What it is, is a lighthearted account of a man and his wife doing what many of us wish we could do every now & then:  quit our current jobs, sell or give away everything and head off to some faraway exotic land and see what happens.  Now to be truthful, his wife didn’t actually quit her job…but she did take an assignment in a not-so-savory place that no one else in her company wanted.  So, basically the same thing. 

I know only one person who’s actually done this in real life, and MW has definitely not written a book about it.  I see random pictures and hear random stories about his travels in South America and overseas on occasion, but for me, this book is my only real taste of that kind of lifestyle.

A few more of my favorite quotes:

In describing his first experience with kava, in Tonga:  I attended a kava ceremony for a visiting Fijian princess…After a few bowls of kava, I turned to the princess, meaning to ask her how much kava, did she think, was too much kava.  Instead, not yet realizing that kava’s effect upon the mouth is similar to that of a shot of Novocain, I said:  “Wincess, how wuch wava is woo wuch wava?”  My Nepalese friend thought that was hilarious:  “You walk wunny,” he said.  “You walk wunny woo,” I pointed out, as we tumbled over in sidesplitting laughter.  We cracked each other up.

In describing his second experience with Vanuatu centipedes, which occured while preparing for his first experience with a typhoon:  I entered the shed and reached for the nearest shutter.  It was heavy and ungainly, and as I pulled it free, a centipede ran toward my feet.  I shrieked, managing to hit an octave I’d thought I had lost with the onset of puberty.