Customer Reviews

Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (Travelers' Tales Guides)

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Got this book for Xmas just before going on a three-day trip and finished it on the plane in about three hours. GREAT stuff! If you've ever strayed more than 100 yards from your home, you can relate to these tales of disaster, frustration and fear...comic disaster, frustration and fear, of course. Lots of memorable pieces, but the ones that stick out for me are Rolf Potts' great tale of bag-snatching in Thailand; Elliot Hester's battle-royale aboard the San Juan special; and the funniest one of all...a newcomer named Mark St. Amant's sleep-deprived account of a perpetually clog-dancing, karaoke-singing Japanese neighbor in Florence. (Some of his descriptions will have you rolling on the floor and kicking your feet, wondering if he'd been sniffing glue prior to writing it, just like a certain monkey that appears in the story.). All in all, a fantastic read, expecially if you're setting out into the cruel, comic world.

This latest humor volume from Travelers' Tales is more than just clever, witty, and sometimes crude--it's downright hilarious! The volume includes very enjoyable pieces from emerging travel writing icon William Dalrymple, the irrepressable Elliot Hester, the ever clever Doug Lansky.
The culturally uptight and easily offended should be warned about two of the best and funniest stories in this top notch anthology, "Saigon Games" by Richard Sterling, and "Snap Happy and the Nagas" by Bennett Stevens. The former has dangerous politically incorrect fun with downtrodden street thieves in Vietnam. Don't try this at home! The latter pokes irreverent fun at himself amidst the madness of the world's largest display of reverence--the Kumbha Mela in India--in what just may be the world's most embarrassing moment.
There are 26 more stories from around the world to enjoy, each offering their own unique view to the limitless variety of available humor hazards facing the modern traveler. Great book to take on the road (lightweight) or add to your bathroom humor collection.

This latest humor volume from Travelers' Tales is more than just clever, witty, and sometimes crude--it's downright hilarious! The volume includes very enjoyable pieces from emerging travel writing icon William Dalrymple, the irrepressable Elliot Hester, the ever clever Doug Lansky.
The culturally uptight and easily offended should be warned about two of the best and funniest stories in this top notch anthology, "Saigon Games" by Richard Sterling, and "Snap Happy and the Nagas" by Bennett Stevens. The former has dangerous politically incorrect fun with downtrodden street thieves in Vietnam. Don't try this at home! The latter pokes irreverent fun at himself amidst the madness of the world's largest display of reverence--the Kumbha Mela in India--in what just may be the world's most embarrassing moment.
There are 26 more stories from around the world to enjoy, each offering their own unique view to the limitless variety of available humor hazards facing the modern traveler. Great book to take on the road (lightweight) or add to your bathroom humor collection.

I picked this book up, because I loved what the editor "Sean O'reilly" did with the Danger! Series.

But this book was a bust. The stories were not entertaining, some poorly written, and boring to a T.

I'm a big fan of the Traveler's Tales Series, having read The Best Travelers' Tales, Spain, Greece, Australia, etc. After reading the VERY FUNNY "Snake Charmer of Guanacaste", a short story that is also in the Best Travelers' Tales, I was expecting more of the same humorous situations in travel. This book, however, sorely underdelivers. It is hard for me to recall a single other funny story in this book, with the possible exception of the Monster Dildo. Which isn't even as funny as it sounds. Now I'm not one for forced humor, but there are obviously funnier stories about traveling than those listed here (I know I have several of my own).

The biggest disappointment, however, is this book's contrast with the vastly superior Best of and individual country books. I feel shortchanged and as if the hyenas are laughing at ME.

At the beginning, I laughed out loud, and then, reading on, grew more and more dismayed. This is not a book about funny incidents. It is a book often filled with people being humiliated at best and beaten at worst. Hidden within this book are messages of how each culture mocks the other. I found the story about the Egypt border, with the snide Italian boasting, "You Americans think that you are individuals. In fact, you are not and that is why you cannot understand that someone might hate you for being an American," juxtaposed with the crazed American guard on the Canadian border, as more horrifying than funny, and more full of warning that the world is a dangerous place. Okay, this is a political message and if you want to debate them, fine. But don't confuse it with comedy.

If you want to keep someone at home, never to set foot on foreign soil, give them this book.

A collection of 25+ "amusing and hilarious" stories from various travel writers. Okay, there a some slightly amusing stories in this compendium of travel and the best story is "The Snake Charmer". For a best of humor moments, this collection is sadly void of the humor. Not to say the stories for the most part weren't nice little snippets of their travels, but overall it falls far short of being outright boisterious. The high points of interest are Snake Charmer, Monstrous Dildo, and the explosive release while attending a mass gathering of India peoples for a religious observance. Many of the stories range in length of 4-7 pages, hardly enough to get you interested and then they end abruptly. The book is worth reading, certainly, but not one I'm likely to reread. For me, the first half of the book was much better than the second half.