Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo

A thrilling, touching, and densely instructive book, Shooting the Boh is also a frank self-portrait of a woman facing her most corrosive fears--and triumphing over them--with fortitude and unflagging wit. "A captivating and truly offbeat rite of passage."--Eric Hansen.

Some women seek adventure to test their mettle, suck down jolts of adrenaline, and prove they haven't grown old and indolent. In Shooting the Boh, journalist Tracy Johnston identifies other motivations for joining a group scheduled to raft down a previously uncharted section of the Boh river in Borneo. "I am by nature a passive person who likes excitement; a person with no magnificent obsessions who loves to participate in them," she says. And, too, if she agreed to write an article about it, the trip was free.

So began an arduous, ill-conceived journey that started with her losing a duffle bag of top-notch river gear and swiftly ran up against treacherous rapids, foot rot, hot flashes, Tarzan-like leeches, clouds of sweat bees, and other nerve-racking flora and fauna. While traversing a section of steamy rain forest, Johnston says, "a quarter of the things I touched had thorns or sharp spines and the rest were covered with ants." She replays the highs and lows of the trip in Technicolor, summing up her fellow travelers and their wild ride in fluid, punchy prose. --Francesca Coltrera