Interview With Carl Hoffman: Riding ‘The Lunatic Express’

Travel Interviews: Jim Benning asks the author about the joys and challenges of traveling in steerage

03.16.10 | 10:36 AM ET

Carl Hoffman

Carl Hoffman didn’t just want to hit the road. He thought it’d be fun to travel the globe on some of the most rusty, rickety, questionable contraptions possible, and so he did. The result is The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World ... Via its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains and Planes, which comes out today and has earned a glowing review in The Wall Street Journal. Hoffman writes about the impoverished people he encountered “with verve and charity, making this book both extraordinary and extraordinarily valuable,” raves Simon Winchester. I found the book to be a compelling, thought-provoking read. I asked Hoffman about the journey and book via email.

World Hum: Where did you get the idea for this project?

Carl Hoffman: I’m a journalist and I’ve been traveling on assignment, often in places like Sudan or Congo or Siberia, for years. Everywhere I went I noticed huge numbers of people on the move—old buses packed with people, people riding on the roofs of trains and hanging from minivans, crammed into small airplanes operated by local airlines—one in the Congo comes to mind that was full of terrified passengers—and I was curious about all those people. Who were they? Where were they going? Why? I wanted to get to know them, to know their story.

At the same time I started noticing the little news clips that you always see buried in the paper: “Peruvian bus plunges off cliff killing 35,” or “Indonesian ferry sinks killing 600.” Suddenly I realized they were the same, that all those people I’d noticed moving around were the ones dying on bad trains and planes and buses, and I thought it might be fascinating to see the world through their eyes.

“Lunatic” and the word “dangerous” in the subtitle make it seem like the book is about this wild, masochistic adventure, but the journey was really a way to understand the world as it really is right at this moment. The thing is, it’s not about some odd subculture, but a look at how the majority of the world travels and lives; I thought it would be a great way to take the pulse of the world and to get to know some of its people in an interesting and surprising way.

What was your most harrowing experience on the trip?

All of them and none of them. When I saw the thousands pouring into the belly of the ferry in Jakarta, I thought, uh oh, I can’t do this. When I saw the train pull into the station in Bamako and it was 110 degrees and the train looked like it had been beaten with sledgehammers and buried in mud, my heart rate soared. When I walked out of the airport into the darkness of Kabul to hail a taxi, I was freaking out.

But by the end of each conveyance I was sad for the ride to end; you get acclimatized to dirt, noise, heat, discomfort, even danger, and your tolerance rises, until there I was, on a bus in Afghanistan that had broken down in a really bad place and the guy next to me is saying, “don’t get out” and starts praying like mad, and I think I’m mad and I’m going to die. And then they get the bus started and off we roll and I’m thinking, what’s the big deal? I’m alive!

It’s all based on fear of the unknown, the unexpected, and a fear of poverty and its children: dirt, noise, overcrowding. The reality was that traveling aboard each of those conveyances was nothing like what I feared, but were instead deep, wonderful immersions with gracious, curious, generous people who fed me and took me home and brought me into their lives. 

All that said, Greyhound from L.A. to D.C. was the worst, not because it was the least comfortable—it wasn’t by far—but because the people traveling on it were the saddest in the world; America from Greyhound felt like a country of lost souls. And it’s the only conveyance in 50,000 miles that actually broke down and couldn’t be fixed. 

Did traveling this way change the way you see travel, or change the way you see the world?

It reinforced the notion that we have nothing to fear. That fear stops us from experiencing so many wondrous things. It taught me that affluence doesn’t buy things but rather space, quiet, cleanliness and solitude, and that even those incredible luxuries come at a steep price—a loss of family and identity and deep belonging. And most of all that traveling isn’t really about where you go or what you see or what you do, but what’s happening inside of you—the inward journey you’re taking in parallel with your actual, physical one. That if you’re not traveling while asking big questions about yourself, well, maybe you should just stay home. 

If you could recommend just one part of this trip for non-lunatic travelers, what would it be? Any experience that you think everyone should have?

As I said above, take risks and don’t be afraid. Be smart, but traveling in steerage will always be a richer experience than traveling in quiet and luxury. Take that alley that leads you don’t know where. The most easily repeatable parts of my trip would be to ride across Indonesia in steerage on a ferry, or to ride the commuter trains of Mumbai—both rich experiences that plunged me deeply into the world. 

Are you working on another book? What’s next for you?

I’m working on a book that takes off from things I thought about in “Lunatic.” I was most fascinated with the remotest places in which I landed; these quiet, out of the way corners of the world that seemed totally removed from it. And I have this constant tension in my life, between wanting intimate connection and flight from it. I always have this fantasy, like when I was in this village in Bangladesh or on Buru, a remote island in Indonesia, that I want to settle down and stay and live and experience a richness of community that doesn’t exist in Washington, D.C. And then I freak out and can’t wait to get OUT!

The world is getting more interconnected every day—it’s the anthem of our age—Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare and texting.  And so I want to explore the idea of its opposite—remoteness. Remoteness in all its forms; I mean, what’s the difference between the U.S. South Pole Station, probably the most isolated place on earth, yet one that’s connected 24/7 by the most sophisticated communications, and a village on the Tibetan plateau, that’s geographically remote and has no connections at all? I want to journey to the world’s remotest places, but defining the idea of remote in the broadest possible terms. And stay for a few weeks, much longer than I did in every place in “Lunatic.” Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy once said he was most scared of rats, so he ate one. I’m scared of these small, close, isolated communities, so I want to go eat them. 

And I’m trying to develop a TV show based on “Lunatic.” Sort of Anthony Bourdain except instead of food it’s awful buses, boats, trains and planes. We’ll see what happens!



4 Comments for Interview With Carl Hoffman: Riding ‘The Lunatic Express’

Global Granny 03.16.10 | 2:26 PM ET

Indeed, when my friends/family shriek aghast at my latest ride in a dilapidated [insert stray rickety conveyance here], I simply remind them that the chances of death/dismemberment are far less than a quick highway whiz to the nearest Walmart.  And if my destiny is to go whilst en route to some wondrously remote corner of the globe - at least it’s got some class (not to mention I went out doing what I love).

Sounds like Mr. Hoffman’s new “Lunatic Express” is my kind of read (and put me down for first in line to volunteer for the reality TV version!)

Terry 03.16.10 | 4:28 PM ET

Mr. Hoffman’s comment about the Greyhound route hosting the saddest souls in the world moved me. I have heard that before.

Travel-Writers-Exchange.com 03.18.10 | 9:08 AM ET

Traveling is always experience even when it’s in your backyard!  If you live in L.A., NY, AZ, or DC, you take a risk when you travel the busy highways.  Motorists dodge in and out of traffic without thinking about it.  They stop and go to avoid those pesky cameras.  What would be the big deal about piling into a ferry or taking a beat up train?  It’s probably safer…

Larry J. Clark 04.29.10 | 7:12 AM ET

An interesting take on the aviation safety side of this story is made by Patrick Smith in his “Ask the Pilot” blog:  http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/04/28/airlines_safety/index.html

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.